Unraveling the Narrative Supporting a Green Energy Transition     

Posted on February 19, 2025 by | 157 Comments

by Planning Engineer (Russ Schussler)

The purpose of this article is to summarize and debunk many of the issues in the narrative surrounding  the proposed green energy transition as applies to the electric grid.  The issues are so numerous that this piece is at once both too long and too short. A full unraveling deserves a book or series of books. This posting however challenges the narrative through summary comments with links to previous posts and articles which can be read for a more detailed explanation or for greater depth.

The Narrative

Efforts to hasten a “green transition” find support in a powerful and compelling narrative. The following statements are widely believed, embraced and supported by various “experts”, a large part of the public and far too many policy makers:

  1. Renewable Energy can meet the electric demand of the United States and World
  2. Renewable Energy is economic
  3. Renewable Energy sources can provide reliable electric service to consumers and support the grid
  4. Renewable energy sources are inexhaustible and widely available
  5. Clean Energy resources don’t produce carbon and are environmentally neutral
  6. Renewable Energy Costs are decreasing over time
  7. It will become easier to add renewables as we become more familiar with the technologies
  8. The intermittency problems associated with wind and solar can be addressed through batteries.
  9. Inverter based generation from wind, solar and batteries can be made to perform like conventional rotating generator technology
  10. Battery improvements will enable the green transition
  11. We are at a tipping point for renewables
  12. Wind, Solar, and Battery technologies collectively contribute to a cleaner environment, economic growth, energy security, and a sustainable future
  13. The world is facing severe consequences from increased CO2 emissions.
  14. There will be an inevitable and necessary transition to clean economic renewables
  15. Green Energy will allow independence from world energy markets
  16. The clean grid will facilitate clean buses, trucks, tanks, planes
  17. The third world will bypass fossil fuels and promote global equity
  18. Replacing fossil fuels with green energy will have huge health benefits
  19. It’s all about Urgency and Action

This narrative is compelling to many consumers and major policy makers. Unqualified acceptance of this powerful narrative makes it clear we should all be behind the movement to increase wind and solar generation along with other efforts to expand renewable resources.  Most all of the above statements making up the narrative are “somewhat” true. Unfortunately, the collective narrative as frequently adopted is at odds with the economics and physical realities of providing electric power and supporting civilization. 

How did this narrative become so widely accepted despite dismal real-world results?  A previous posting discussed, “How the Green Energy Narrative Confuses Things” by using misleading language and distraction (#44). Additionally,  tribal loyalties enable distortions and suppress more realistic assessments (#18, #10,#22, #42, &#39). While others should chime in on the social psychology supporting this movement, astute observers can’t miss the power of fear-based narratives, groupthink, demonization of dissenters and misplaced altruism (#39, #18,& #10).  Incentives and their impact on key actors play a major role (#38 & #29). The media overblowing trivialities and focusing on continually emerging “good news” helps cement undeserved optimism.   The great many failures are conveniently forgotten. Finally, it should be noted that the electric grid has been very robust. In the short run you can make a lot of “bad decisions” before negative consequences emerge to challenge the narrative. At that point it may be too late.

The next section will explore and critically examine various elements of the narrative in a very brief fashion, with links in many cases providing more detailed explanations and information. 

Unraveling the Narrative

  1. Renewable Energy can meet the electric demand of the United States and World
    • “Renewable Energy” is not a coherent category and allows for a lot of confusion. #40
    • The green energy narrative began with simple calculations which found that the energy which could be derived from renewable resources like hydro, solar and wind matched or exceeded the energy consumed as electric energy. It is not a particularly meaningful observation. #28
      • It does not consider what may be involved in making that energy available when needed, where needed, with the proper characteristics needed.
    • Demonstrating that sufficient energy exists does not say anything about our ability to harness such resources. Large amounts of various “renewable” energy sources, such as those listed below. But even though the energy is there, and small amounts can be harnessed, most know enough not say the energy presence itself makes an energy transition feasible soon.
      • Tidal Energy
      • Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion
      • Earths rotational energy
      • Earth’s magnetic field
      • Nuclear Fusion
      • Unconventional geothermal energy (Hot Dry Rock or Enhanced Geothermal Systems)
    • Using just sunlight and/or wind exclusively to power large motors, variable speed drives, non-linear loads, arc furnaces or power a modern civilization is not feasible at this time.
    • Projecting feasibility based only such “studies” or calculations may be from either a serious misunderstanding of the challenges to be faced or unconstrained infantile optimism around future breakthroughs.

2.Renewable Energy is Economic

    • In limited cases, yes. In many cases, only in a trivial sense for a limited set of costs associated with these resources.
    • While the marginal cost of production for wind and solar is low, approaching zero:
      • Total cost including backup and system needs tells a different story. #8 , #9, #2, & #20
        • Costly investments in grid improvements and backup generation are needed to accommodate and support any significant amount of intermittent asynchronous generation . #3 & #17
        • Operationally there are significant dispatch costs for backing up wind and solar.
      • Wind and solar projects typically are in service for far shorter periods than projected.
    • The more wind and solar added to the system, the more costly they become.
      • Work best at low generation levels when they allow more costly resources to back down.
      • The lower their generation level, the more the system can accommodate them without additional costs. #2 & #26
      • It is demonstrated worldwide that increased levels of these resources are associated with higher electric costs for consumers and taxpayers.
    • While home solar can be subsidized to appear low cost, it is misleading for the big picture, especially as applications increase. #6 & #5
    • Average costs are misleading and cost measures such as LCOE are flawed as they do not reflect real world requirements. #8, #3, & #9
    • Undoubtedly premature to advocate that that a resource is economic, without considerations of reliability, deliverability and its potential operation in conjunction within a resource mix as part of a grid.

3.Renewable energy sources can provide reliable electric service to consumers and support the grid.

    • Statement may be trivially true, but is generally inaccurate.
    • Generally, it is an accurate assessment for hydro, biomass and geothermal. #3 & #12
      • These involve traditional rotating machines in synch with the grid. They inherently supply essential reliability services for grid support.
      • These resources have flexibility for dispatch and ramping.
      • Geothermal and biomass are greatly restricted by local geography.
      • New applications of these resources face especially significant environmental challenges.
    • Not so true for wind and solar generation. #12 & #26
      • They provide energy intermittently and do not match demand patterns. #2, #3, & #41
      • They do not spin in synchronism with the grid which has seriously inhibits their ability to support the grid. #7
      • They depend on the grid and synchronous rotating machines. #17
      • Problems associated with these resources increase as their penetration levels increase. #7
    • Supposed “proofs” that wind and solar support the system generally come from cherrypicked brief off-peak periods when renewable generation exceeded demand (not really a good thing.)
      • Grid support must be 24 hours/day during peak and extreme conditions. Configurations should ensure that the grid can go ten years with one loss of load expectation (LOLE).
      • Coasting through an off-peak period does not imply sustainability.
      • Where wind and solar match load, it is near certain that considerable spinning rotational machines (hydro or fossil fuel) are on the interconnected grid backing up these resources either serving other load not counted, or on-line spinning ready to take on load. #21
      • They may just come from accounting efforts, with no attention to flows or time periods.
    • Cost comparisons without considering reliability differences are worthless.

4.Renewable resources are inexhaustible and widely available.

    • The resources needed to construct and maintain such facilities as well as resources needed to back them up are not inexhaustible. #40
    • Geothermal is rarely available and some geothermal can be depleted.
    • Further hydro development is problematic in most of the developed world. In the US some dams are being eliminated to return to a more “natural” state.
    • Suitability for wind and solar varies considerably by region.
    • All resource needs for using generation resources should be considered. #40
      • Scarce resources are needed in the production of wind and solar power.
      • Expected sustainability before depletion may be higher for nuclear power and some fossil fuel generating resources, than for resources needed for wind, solar and battery facilities. Of course, emerging developments may change expectations for any resource. 

5.Clean Energy resources don’t produce carbon and are environmentally neutral. #40

    • Adverse impacts from “green” resources have typically received considerably less attention from the media, policy makers and advocates than similar impacts from conventional generation.
      • Although when it’s in their backyard, the problems of wind, hydro and large solar emerge and they become targets of local environmental groups.
      • Over time, the adverse impacts related to their operation and disposal become more and more evident. Recycling is challenging to impossible for the large structural components and also the scarce resources needed for energy conversion.
    • The construction, maintenance and operation of such resources produce significant environmental impact including CO2 emissions.
    • Geothermal generation produces CO2.
    • Backup generators are often run inefficiently to allow for wind and solar generation.
      • Cases of fossil fuel, wind and solar generation may have higher emissions than similar cases with only fossil fuel generation running more efficiently.

6.Renewable Energy Costs are decreasing over time

    • Some components are dropping – but total costs are more questionable as there is considerable data showing costs are rising.
      • Often cost data refers only to specific components that are decreasing, not the full cost for the installed facilities needed to generate energy and power.
      • In particular, land and labor push up costs associated with wind and solar.
    • Increasing penetration levels raise overall costs for solar, wind and batteries. #26

7.It will become easier to add renewables as we become more familiar with the technologies.

    • Only easier in limited ways attributable to things like experience and benefits of scope.
    • Exponentially harder to add increasing levels of wind, solar and batteries. #26 & #2
      • Asynchronous and intermittent resources are harder to integrate as their levels increase.
      • Prime renewable locations will already be exploited, and less desirable locations remain.
      • Continued developments entails the need to move energy longer and longer distances.
      • As wind and solar increase, early adopters will be less able to lean on neighboring systems.

8.The intermittency problems associated with wind and solar can be addressed through batteries.

    • Possibly, but at a great cost and added complexity. #2, #41, & #43
    • This assertion is extremely misleading when it implies that intermittency is the main problem.
      • Compared to the problems associated with asynchronism and the capabilities of inverter-based generation, intermittency is a much smaller problem.
      • Hiding/ignoring misleading points in the green narrative. #44
      • Asynchronism is the problem more so than intermittency.

9.Inverter based generation from wind, solar and batteries can be made to perform like conventional rotating generator technology.  #43, #41, #3, & #19

    • Note – most people are not aware of the asynchronous problems associated with wind, solar and batteries.
    • When these elements let the grid down, the cry is “make the grid more resilient” as if that has some real meaning.
    • When that problem can’t get ignored, the green narrative is to back up and have someone say with technological improvements, inverters can perform “like” synchronous generation without any recognition of the drawbacks.
    • When inverters are made to provide extra functionality, it raises the installed costs and entails a significant reduction in energy output and reliability.
    • Three phases of Inverter development, none have achieved widespread use
      • Pseudo inertia (synthetic inertia), Grid supporting, Grid Forming.
        • Phases are more goal oriented or aspirational than accomplishment based.
        • Each is intended to do more than the previous “development” phase to “mimic” rotating generators.
        • Research and applications are largely on paper, in laboratories and pilot programs. Few if any working plants are gaining needed operational experience.
      • The early phases were sold as “the way” to allow higher penetration of inverter-based generation but were found not be able to deliver as promised.
      • The insufficiency of these approaches was recognized long before any large-scale implementations were undertaken (Note-generally phased development follows a widespread deployment of earlier phases prior to successive improved phases. In this area, the task is so far beyond the capabilities that prior phases can’t really show much proof of concept in the field.)
      • Why should we expect the latest grid forming phase to do better than predecessors?
      • Overwhelmingly, most wind and solar applications on the grid do not have functioning special inverter capabilities of any sort.
    • Enhanced inverters may perform “like” rotating elements in limited environments, but this “like” way is radically inferior to the performance of rotating generators. #30, #29
    • Inverter performance may improve with technological advances. However, they have an extremely long way to go.
      • Theoretically they can do a lot rotating machines cannot, but the complexity of taking advantage of that while coordinating with other changing elements across the grid so they all perform well together across all potential contingency conditions is immense.
      • Similar optimism exists for superconductors to improve the grids reliability and efficiency, but it would be extremely foolish to depend on either to support a planned energy transition. They are far from being judged as feasible.
    • This is the biggest problem the green narrative overlooks and is the major stumbling block to widespread integration of wind, solar and batteries.

10.Battery improvements will enable the green energy transition.

    • As discussed previously, batteries may address intermittency, but not the major problem of inverter-based generation.
      • Batteries suffer from the same inverter based problems as wind and solar.
      • Their inability to adequately provided needed system reliability services is usually not addressed. #29
    • Much is made of continual reports on improvements in battery technology
      • Many breakthroughs in research but they take development in differing directions and are not compatible with most of the other breakthroughs. “Breakthroughs” are typically not cumulative, corroborative or generally able to be combined.
        • Inverter-based improvements needed for wind, solar and batteries suffer from similar development challenges.
        • Consider the path of high temperature superconductors which were projected in the near term, but hit a wall before widespread practical applications could be employed.)
      • To control for extreme weather events (e.g. Dunkelflaute) might require that batteries completely ignore wind and solar capacity. Leaving tremendous amounts of unused capacity most of the time.

11.We are at a tipping point for renewables. #44

    • Which renewables are included is debatable. #40
    • Tipping point is not defined and only weak evidence is cited. –  #44

12.Wind Solar and Battery technologies collectively contribute to a cleaner environment, economic growth, energy security, and a sustainable future. #40 & #42

    • They might contribute small amounts at low penetration, but they are dwarfed by huge drawbacks at higher penetration levels.
    • In delicate environments, small compact fossil fuel-based energy sources may be superior to renewable resources with more intrusive footprints. #14
    • See v above.

13.The world is facing severe consequences from increased CO2 emissions.

  • The greater the risks from increasing CO2, the less we can afford to favor wind, solar and battery technology over more pragmatic approaches. #32
  • This is the most dangerous component to be incorporated into this narrative.
    • Because of this fear, it is argued we must chase bad ideas. #18
    • Because of this fear, dissent from these bad ideas is demonized. #18
    • Because of this fear, we must move to a panic mode and do counterproductive things. #1
      • The greater the risk from climate change:
        • The smarter we need to be.
        • The less we can tolerate bad ideas and wasted efforts.
      • Climate concerns do not change the physics of the grid nor the functioning of resources.
        • However, extreme weather will make “green” resources less suitable.
        • While the need for reliable, affordable power will be greater.
      • Green plans misdirect a lot of resources and weaken energy policy approaches. #42
        • If situation is that grim as regards CO2 emissions:
          • Perhaps that should outweigh any concerns around nuclear energy.
          • Perhaps environmental damage from new hydro is warranted as well to address climate.
          • If new nuclear and hydro are out, changing civilization is an option that needs to be on the table, frequently discussed and fully considered.
          • False appeals to questionable technologies will not help us.
          • False hopes of improving technology will only hurt us.

14.There will be an inevitable and necessary transition to clean economic renewables

    • When? It is very unlikely to be in the foreseeable future and certainly not in a planning time frame.

15.Green Energy will allow independence from world energy markets

    • We depend on other countries for material and components needed to construct renewable facilities.
    • Wind, solar and batteries cannot run steel mills and industrial processes needed for a “green” energy transition, not sustain civilization after (unless you call nuclear and hydro green)..
    • How is the fear of “foreign oil” so much more of concern than dependence on rare earth metals and other foreign imports.

16.The clean grid will facilitate clean buses, trucks, tanks, and planes

    • Not if it doesn’t work.
    • Wind, solar and batteries alone clearly cannot provide for such growth in electric consumption.

17.The third world will bypass fossil fuels and promote global equity

    • Nonsense

18.Replacing fossil fuels with green energy will have huge health benefits

    • More costly energy is associated with alternative use of dirty fuels creates hazardous pollution in many third world areas.
    • Rising costs of electricity generally encourages less clean alternatives that are more difficult to monitor.

19.It’s all about Urgency and Action

    • If urgency and action could dependably solve hard problems, years ago we’d have a cure for cancer and the common cold, flying cars, jet packs and ended world hunger.

It might be argued that the above refutations (even with citations) are too quick and lack detailed substantial evidence. While there is quite a bit out there that can be referenced, it should be pointed out that the arguments supporting a green transition are asserted without with much serious reasoning and far flimsier support than provided here.  That which is easily asserted without foundation should not require overly demanding refutations. Clearly when and if more detailed claims supporting a green energy transition are made, they can be answered with more detailed rebuttals.

Academics are a key part of the problem of a sustained false narrative. Much of the “evidence” out there comes from small studies of single variables with academic models which are stretched far behind what was analyzed.  Additionally, expert opinions come from many “experts” who “preach” far outside their fields of expertise and training. There are rewards in academia for furthering optimism on the green transition.  There are not so many incentives for nay-sayers.  Academics who understand the problems and would offer caution, generally do not have the reach of those who promote optimism by clouding the facts.  The many half-truths presented from different sources cannot be summed up to imply a credible narrative, even though many have the impression this makes a strong case.  #44

Clearly there are many discontinuities between theory and what is observed in the real world as regards the potential for wind, solar and batteries.  Milton Friedman said, “One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.” I’d add, “What happens in the field should be more convincing what you calculated on paper”.  The next section will cover truths that need to be added to any considerations around our energy future.

Truths that need to be part of Energy Transition Narrative

These truths don’t get near as much attention as the above. Sometimes they are hidden and sometimes they are summarily denied rather than given the attention they deserve.

1)Adequately addressing the energy future requires we understand the true costs and benefits of ALL available and potentially available technologies. #1 & #3

2)Large grids are dependent upon and run on rotating machines. #3, #7, #11, #26 & #12

3)No Grids run on asynchronous generation only (or majority asynchronous) without significant backup.

    • Despite reports that wind, solar and batteries power a system – real world cases always involve significant conventional generation backing them up somewhere on the interconnected grid.
    • Asynchronous wind, solar and batteries without rotating backup resources are not feasible power supply element for large power systems.

4)Hydro, biomass and geothermal are fine for grid support, but are problematic and/or not available in many areas.

5)Wind and solar face major challenges in achieving significant penetration levels and have many underdiscussed issues.

    • Wind and solar resources have more limited lifespans and greater costs than typically modeled. #8 & #9 Batteries may be worse.
    • Expected performance during and after disasters is often over-exaggerated.

6)Costs of Wind and solar resources are often hidden and assigned to others. #5, #6, & #31

  • Rates that are subsidized by non-users. #5
  • Support costs are built into the transmission or distribution rate and paid by others.
  • Shorter life and costlier maintenance and replacements.
      • Ivanpah Solar facility ($2.2 Billion. 400 MW) shuttered in 11th year because it’s not worth the operating costs to keep the “free” energy online.
      • Wind Turbines have short lives and costly repairs.

7)If Nuclear is the right direction, current efforts at wind and solar are misguided. Nuclear plants run best full out with low incremental cost.   Displacing nuclear with intermittent wind and solar makes little to no sense.

8)It’s possible to subsidize a few things that have small costs to support development of green resources, but small costs multiplied by orders of magnitude are crushing. #6

9)Utility costs are regressive, dis-proportionally hitting those less well-off and least able to afford rising costs. These costs are more regressive than taxation schemes. #5 #6, & #31

10)If we must cut carbon emissions without nuclear and hydro, drastically changing civilization is an option that needs to be on the table, openly and frequently discussed and given full considered.

11)Energy Markets are not working well.  My take is energy provision cannot effectively and efficiently be broken into separated independent components. Utilities used to provide an amalgamation of goods and services for their customers.  Separating out distribution, and transmission services increase complexity, but still doesn’t set up energy or its components as commodities. Separate commodities for hourly energy, capacity, emergency power, reliability services, backup power, and spinning reserve eliminate many of the efficiencies available from full-service power supply. For example: daily energy markets don’t support long term emergency power. Who pays for facilities needed for only once in a decade extreme weather, and when and how do they pay for it?  Daily markets drive those resources which have emergency value out of business. Perhaps I am wrong, but experience tells us markets uncharacteristically are not working well for energy and energy services. #45

12)Credible plans for any electric energy future, let alone a major transition, will need to integrate studies of both supply and deliverability while balancing economics, costs and public responsibility. No conclusions about what may be worthwhile is possible without such considerations. #16 & #39

Other Topics that need to be considered

A)China and India’s CO2 emissions will likely dwarf emissions from western nations soon. Which is a more effective role for the US:

    1. As a leader developing, promoting and sharing clean fossil-based technologies to be emulated by developing and third world nations. #36
    2. As a leader among advanced nations promoting green technologies largely overlooked by most of the planet as they use less clean resources and their emissions grow exponentially?

B)What about developing countries in the third world? How we can hold them back by requiring they use a path that we can’t make work.  Their burdens are more significant than ours.

    1. Economic barriers – high initial investment or crushing burdens from foreign loans.
    2. Human capital -technical skill needs.
    3. These resources work even less well without an established strong grid.
    4. Often more extreme climates increase challenges.
    5. Specialized problems such as theft, waste management, and cultural acceptance.

C)Can effective regulation, as opposed to current regulatory practices revive nuclear construction significantly?

D)Energy density problem (EROEI) – Can solar and wind provide enough energy to be self-perpetuating considering full lifetime needs?

    1. There is no significant production of “green” infrastructure with wind and solar energy.
    2. Wind and solar infrastructure depend today on fossil fuel-based energy for their construction and operation.

E)Grid and energy prices are globally critical to healthy economies and a reasonable quality of life.

F)How do we incentivize policy makers to prioritize long term goals versus what’s expedient the next few years. #38 & #1

    1. Imprudent short-term boosts (ignoring maintenance, depleting reserves) provide temporary advantages while building for the future initially entails greater costs.
    2. For job evaluations, it’s easier to see what was done, rather than evaluate the long-term benefits of such programs
    3. Engineers professionally suffer for not supporting green goals
    4. Supporting green goals has rewards for practicing engineers.
    5. I have never seen anyone recognized & rewarded for standing up for the grid ten years ago.
    6. Bad incentives and the hope that technology or policy changes will arrive on time before things have gotten too bad, keeps most of those who might speak out in check.

G)How do we combat feel-good narratives? Energy is much more complex than recycling. Despite great under-achievement, renewable hopes have persisted for long time periods.  Will the false hopes of wind, solar and batteries be just as intractable despite real world experience?

How Does the Green Energy Narrative Remain Strong Despite the Big Picture?

It’s hard to argue against the “green energy“ agenda. “There’s always something just around the corner that’s going to change everything”, we’re often told (#34, #43 & #24 ).  It’s seductive, “Somebody is investing a lot of money now in the next great thing and we should be part of that as well.” But those things don’t pan out.  There is broad support and rewards for going along with the “green” narrative, even for projects as ridiculous as “electric roadways” ( #42) and especially for projects as big and bold as the German Energiewende.  A decade ago, when warning of emerging  problems, countless times I was told that Germany had proved it could be done.  In this piece (#21) in 2017, a coauthor and I tried to point out the problems with that representation. Despite voices like ours, the world remained largely impervious to criticisms of the German experiment. By the time Germany’s huge failure became apparent for all to see, the argument moved on to Australia where “it’s now  being proved it can be done”.  Chris Morris and I did a series (#33, #34, #35) on Australia in 2023 highlighting our understandings of those efforts and our expectations for underperformance.  It’s not looking good for Australia, or England or for any who have raced to have high penetrations of wind and solar.  But dismal real-world results so far have not been much of a brake on the movement.  Renewable “experts” remain undeterred and unmoved by failed ideas.( #37)

Prior to the green energy narratives, there had been near continuous progress with engineers building and maintaining stronger and more robust grids that held up well across varied challenging conditions.  The trend was that widespread grid outages (not the same as distribution outages) were becoming increasingly rare as grids became more robust and resilient. The beginnings of the “green transition” served to slow and reverse that progress. Most grids are sufficiently strong such that significant degradations do not show up as system problems for quite some time. The likelihood that problems won’t manifest for some years down the road makes it hard for defenders of the grid to stand up to short term pressures to go greener. (#38)

The strong robustness of the grid makes it hard to clearly identify and point out emerging problems with the grid.  As I wrote here (#27)

The power system is the largest, most complicated wonderful machine ever made. At any given time, it must deal with multiple problems and remain stable. No resources are perfect; in a large system you will regularly find numerous problems occurring across the system. Generally, a power system can handle multiple problems and continue to provide reliable service. However, when a system lacks supportive generation sources, it becomes much more likely it will not be able function reliably when problems occur.

When an outage occurs, you can always choose to point a finger at any of the multiple things that went wrong. (#44, #26)   Some traditional fossil fuel technology will always be included in the set of things that were not right.  (Loss of just renewables doesn’t usually cause big problems because apart from energy, they don’t support the system while in service.) For various reasons, advocates insist the finger should be pointed away from renewables (and the gap in needed system support) and at the conventional technology that was not perfect when the outage occurred.  It’s critical to note that conventional technology is never perfect across a large system, however we were able to make reliable robust systems that could easily accommodate such imperfections. But now the presence of less dependable resources and inverter-based energy makes systems far less robust, even during times when those problematic resources are working well. It’s  a near sure bet the next large grid outage will be largely caused by problems associated with high levels of wind and solar penetration, whether those resources are available during the outage or not.  That bet can’t be made, because no referee acceptable to both sides can be found.

Conclusions

The case for an energy transition based on wind, solar and batteries is grossly incomplete and stands against evidence and reason.  The green narratives sub-propositions in isolation contain some truths, but they are extended in misleading ways.   A collection of 200, 800, or ten million studies showing that isolated challenges around renewable resources can be addressed cannot make a case for reliable, affordable deliverable energy.  When the resources are ready, proponents can make a case by operating a small system without connection to conventional generation that experiences  varied load conditions and real-world challenges.  When a case for large scale penetration of wind, solar, and batteries has been made with adequate considerations of costs, reliability and deliverability, it can then be reviewed and challenged with detail.

Planning must balance economics, reliability and environmental responsibility using  real workable technology which conforms with the physics of the grid and meets the needs of society (#15,#16, #25, #23 & #32).  Electric supply and the grid are too important to base policies upon poor narratives and incomplete understandings. Hope for future improvements must be based on realistic expectations.  Going a short way down the “green” path is easy.  Adding a bit more “renewables: isn’t that expensive and the gird is plenty robust for incremental hits.  For most involved, it’s easier to go with that flow than to stand up for long-term concerns.  But we are getting closer to the cliff as costs continue to increase and reliability problems become more prevalent. 

Policy makers need to consider a fuller and more complete array of truths around renewables and the grid. Rigorous considerations of many complex and interlinking issues between generation and transmission are needed to build and support modern grids. No-one, even those with a lifetime in the business, fully understands everything involved. Experience and incremental changes have served the development and operation of the grid well.  Many outside “experts”,  have next to no real knowledge of the complexities involved and propose dramatic changes. Without serious and time-consuming efforts from policy makers, real grid experts can’t compete with proposals that are basically founded upon tee-shirt slogans.  Spending money, altering systems, and hoping for the best based on the green narrative alone is a recipe for disaster. 

Notes

Thanks to Meridith Angwin, Roger Caiazza and Chris Morris for reviewing drafts and providing useful comments.  I’ve tried to do a lot here in a limited space and the treatment is somewhat uneven across the broad range of topics. I welcome others to improve and build upon these ideas and structures.  I would be glad to assist in such efforts as long as it is not tied to other political, religious, or social issues.  My focus is on energy and encouraging reasonable energy policies and regulations. 

Previous Postings and Articles Referenced

  1. Myths and Realities of Renewable Energy – 2014/10/22  
  2. More renewables? Watch out for the Duck Curve – 2014/11/05
  3. All megawatts are not equal – 2014/12/11
  4. Taxonomy of climate/energy policy perspectives – 2015/02/03
  5. Clean Air – Who Pays? – 2015/02/09
  6. What should renewables pay for grid service? – 2015/04/21
  7. Transmission planning: wind and solar – 2015/05/07
  8. True costs of wind electricity – 2015/05/12
  9. Solar grid parity? 2015/05/31
  10. Why Skeptics hate climate skeptics – 2015/06/03
  11. Microgrids and “Clean” Energy – 2015/07/28
  12. Renewables and grid reliability 2016/01/06
  13. Energy strategies: horses for courses – 2016/03/20
  14. Energy and Environment on the “Garden Island” – 2016/06/16
  15. Drivers & Determinants for Power System Entities, Electric Energy (RMEL), Summer 2016,
  16. Balance and the Grid – 2016/09/12
  17. Reports of the Electric Grid’s Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated Power Magazine 2017/04/1
  18. Science Marchers, Secretary Perry’s Memo and Bill Nye’s Optimism – 2017/04/24
  19. Renewable resources and the importance of generation diversity – 2017/05/09
  20. The Grid End Game T&D World 2017/06/26
  21. Myth of the German Renewable Energy Miracle – T&D World 2017/10/23
  22. Trying to Make Sense of Musk Love and Solar Hype – 2017/10/27
  23. Third-World Grid, Smart Grid or a Smart Grid? T&D World 2018/6/25
  24. Reflections on Energy Blogging – 2019/10/21
  25. Will California “learn” to avoid Peak Rolling Blackouts? – 2022/09/12
  26. The Penetration Problem. Part I: Wind and Solar – The More You Do, The Harder It Gets -2022/10/3
  27. The Penetration Problem. Part II: Will the Inflation Reduction Act Cause a Blackout? – 2022/10/11
  28. Academics and the grid Part I: I don’t think that study means what you think it means – 2023/01/04
  29. Academics and the grid. Part II: Are they studying the right things? – 2023/01/09
  30. Academics and the Grid Part 3: Visionaries and Problem Solvers – 2023/01/15
  31. Green energy: Don’t stick Granny with the bill – 23/01/29
  32. Net Zero or Good Enough? – 2023/02/09
  33. Australian Renewable Integration – Part 1 – 2023/03/02
  34. Australian Renewable Integration – Part 2 – 2023/03/08
  35. Australian Renewable Integration – Part 3 – 2023/03/11
  36. The Earths Green Future is Forked – 2023/04/03
  37. Renewable Experts: Undeterred and Unmoved by Failed Ideas – 2023/04/17
  38. Silence of the Grid Experts – 23/05/03
  39. Fauci, Fear, Balance and the Grid – 2023/05/08
  40. Time to retire the term ‘renewable energy’ from serious discussion and energy policy directives – 2024/02/05
  41. Time to Retire the Term “Renewable Energy” from Serious Discussions and Policy Directives: Part II – 2024/02/16
  42. Time to Retire the Term “Renewable Energy” from Serious Discussions and Policy Directives: Part 3 – 2024/02/22
  43. Wind and Solar Can’t Support the Grid – 2024/12/05
  44. How the Green Energy Narrative Confuses Things – 2025/1/30
  45. Assigning Blame for the Blackouts in Texas – 2021/2/18

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157 responses to “Unraveling the Narrative Supporting a Green Energy Transition     ”

  1. John Plodinec | February 19, 2025 at 8:01 am |

    California provides resounding support for the arguments here. California certainly thinks it has accelerated decarbonization, but it’s been at the cost of ever-more-frequent brownouts (and if Diablo Canyon actually closes in 2030, I predict blackouts).

    The problem is two-fold – skyrocketing demand, and the problems that come with increasing capacity.

    • Demand. Over the last 50 years, California’s demand for electricity has increased almost linearly. However, mandates forcing the electrification of transportation and the blooming of data centers across the state and country make it easy to project a spike in demand (perhaps doubling) in the next decade. At the same time, fossil plants (natural gas currently provides about a third of CA’s electricity) are being forced to retire. San Onofre nuclear station was closed in 2013; at the time it provided about 1/6 of CA’s electric needs. CA’s high electric rates also partially reflect the state’s need to purchase power on spot markets – about 25% of its electricity is imported (mostly from the Pacific NW, but some from Mexico). Diablo Canyon provides about 10% of CA’s electricity, but is now scheduled to close in 2030.

    • Increasing capacity. There are really only two options – more renewables (the favored choice of the enviro cult) or more nuclear. CA’s brownouts has brought attention to an interesting problem with renewables. In olden times (around Y2K) if you had enough power to cover peak demand (around 3-5 pm), you had enough power to cover the entire day. Starting in 2020, the increase in renewables and the overall increase in demand meant the system operators had enough power to cover peak demand, but if the weather didn’t cooperate then there wasn’t enough electricity to meet the demand of people coming home, plugging in their cars, turning on their ACs, after the peak. Hence the brownouts that started in 2020 and have occurred sporadically since.

    If we increase the fraction of renewables we just increase the system’s vulnerability to hot, cloudy, windless days. Further, few people seem to be concerned about the land needed for renewables. Diablo Canyon’s power production site takes up about 0.01 sq mi. Using the best estimates I can find, that translates into about 28 sq mi for a solar replacement; and, of course, this doesn’t take into account solar’s intermittency. It would take about 4X that much to actually match Diablo Canyon’s (or that of a fossil fuel plant) output. And then we would need batteries to store the solar-generated power.

    Batteries have their own problems. They’re expensive – really expensive: the 680 MW Nova Power Bank will cost over $1 B, and it would take at least three of these for our notional renewable replacement for Diablo Canyon. And it will only provide that power for a period of four hours – if you need more, forget it.

    In principle, nuclear is the answer. No CO2, and a minuscule amount of waste. However, as I know all too well from the $9 B fiasco with the failed Sumner plant expansion here in SC, these projects are fiscally and legally vulnerable. I love the concept of the small nukes, but they won’t be around until the ’30’s.

    • Mike Keller | February 19, 2025 at 1:16 pm |

      San Onofre was closed as a result of a severe operational/safety problems caused by the utility directing replacement of the existing steam generators that experienced some tube leaks (tube material issue). The utility wanted to get more output from the plant and choose to make the tubes smaller and more numerous.
      Basically, the new boiler tubes leaked like sieves as a result of severe hydraulic stress (vortex shedding) issues that were not present with the larger tubes of the original steam generators. The manufacture would have replaced for free (warranty issue) the new defective steam generators with proper components, but the utility elected to close the power plant.

    • Jungketrunks | February 22, 2025 at 4:23 pm |

      Selecting this portion of John’s response from his final para: “nuclear is the answer. No CO2, and a minuscule amount of waste.”

      I agree.

      Only 4% of the energy utilized from global nuclear commercial light water reactor uranium fuel is utilized, it’s deemed exhausted after only a few years use. Historically the remaining radioactive nuclear waste material has been stored (a huge problem to contend with over thousands of years).

      Technology has advanced, capable of exploiting most of the remaining energy from said exhausted fuel. Nuclear waste can be recycled. There’s enough remaining energy from reclaimed stored waste uranium to provide 150 years worth of global energy needs from said waste nuclear material.

      https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/pioneering-nuclear-technology-firm-curio-closes-14-million-seed-round-to-drive-clean-energy-innovation-302121666.html

      There are a several nuclear initiatives near realization (fusion among them—though not related to here); the former is leaps and bounds beyond the embarrassingly rudimentary, and unreasonably high expectations of solar/wind “solutions” that the Left fawn over—Earth’s energy salvation. Everything the Left presents is built off the before paradigm of low expectations (if they could only resolve elusive battery tech). It’s understood that the Lefts failures are wrapped within a battery of enigmas.

      Global Leftism has the arbitrary ridiculous goal of net zero, utilizing wind and solar as their costly solution; they’re willing to bet the farm on these ideas—doesn’t matter the cost. They can’t think beyond their solutions because, frankly, they can care less. CAGW is only a game to facilitate ideology.

      Can we please get past wind/solar as the paradigm for Earths salvation? The latter represents the low hanging fruit of Leftist expectation, that for which these politically primordial neanderthals can glom onto for numerical effect, truth of them has no relevance.

      • Chris Morris | February 22, 2025 at 6:33 pm |

        From what I have read, using Thorium to heat nitrogen for a Braydon Cycle turbine could allow a lot greater percentage of the available energy to be utilised. If it does work (they are a lot more advanced on this than hot dry rock or fusion reactor), then that could be a real game changer

      • Jungletrunks | February 22, 2025 at 7:37 pm |

        Chris, thanks for your reply.

        You’re forever better on all issues dealing with the applied logistics of energy than I ever will be. I’m merely an aggregator of my own interests.

        The following, and more, feeds my understanding about nuclear fuel recycling:

        https://www.wicz.com/story/52414290/curio-and-energy-northwest-announce-expanded-partnership-to-enhance-nuclear-fuel-recycling

      • Chris Morris | February 22, 2025 at 7:59 pm |

        My knowledge of nuclear physics is very rudimentary but a number few of our engineers are refugees from others nuke programmes (UK, USA, SA) so they provide intersesting stories at smokos.
        My understanding is that Thorium is a major change from uranium reactors. It does not need enrichment. Copenhagen Atomics have figure out how to modularise them into shipping containers, plug and play. Their reactor design will consume nuclear waste.
        The podcast in here was good for technical detail – engineers not politicians or salespeople
        https://atomicinsights.com/atomic-show-274-thomas-jam-pedersen-copenhagen-atomics/?highlight=Copenhagen
        I believe they are waiting for a license to build one so they are well advanced
        That design and the eVinci plus the Rolls Royce SMRs indicate that the future may not be the massive single reactors.

      • melitamegalithic | February 23, 2025 at 5:57 am |

        The subject of modular nukes using the Brayton cycle did come up some years ago. Then, of concern was the use of Helium as the working fluid. A concern of mine was the possible breakdown of helium into hydrogen, which is then disastrous on hot ferrous metals. Not what one wants when looking for long life-cycle times, especially with nuke forms.

        Nitrogen may have a similar negative effect.

        There is a large gulf between academic design and the first guinea-pig unit. Twenty yrs ago I was very alarmed by the trend to test in the field at the buyer’s premises. And proved right several times; an ugly experience.

      • Chris Morris | February 23, 2025 at 11:47 am |

        melita
        Nitrogen is only a problem for some steels if it goes to over about 900°C and can infuse into the crystal structure IIRC. There isn’t the problem of it forming a different element. Thorium has a lot lower energy particles – that is why they need a different reactor design. The US built a very successful reactor that ran on it for a while . Didn’t produce bomb material so no use and it was shut down.
        They have got a working model, up to about 1MW thermal. They want to go bigger

      • Jungletrunks | February 23, 2025 at 12:44 pm |

        Thanks Russ, Chris, and melitamegalithic.

        There’s been a great deal of news describing significant advancements in nuclear technology, small-scale nuclear reactors (various approaches), recycling nuclear fuel; even fusion advances. Prior concerns surrounding nuclear waste material seem to have been redirected towards excitement of exploiting it. There are also low-carbon solutions utilizing traditional energy sources. Exxon/Chevron moving into NG power generation using advanced carbon capture approaches—the latter may be the market front runner, though some of the nuclear approaches seem to be on the fast track.

        The drive is to address the energy needs for AI, utilizing small-scale reactors, and/or new NG tech, the goal is near-term solutions.

        Some of the energy advancements described strike me as near-term disruptive power sources, it’s a scramble to exploit first to market technology. The bottom-line question I pose to you experts: who will the “likely” winners be? Many of the developers for next generation projects are already at prototype stages. Where is your enthusiasm directed, gut? I suspect there will be many winners ultimately, but what does near-term deployment look like, how quick is quick. In terms of expanding the grid, I’m sure this will be a process unfolding over many years, decades; but there’s a paradigm shift in there somewhere.

      • B A Bushaw | February 23, 2025 at 4:08 pm |

        Trunks: “nuclear is the answer. No CO2, and a minuscule amount of waste.”

        Hanford: 9 reactors, 175 million gallons of high-level waste, full of your favorite high-yield, high activity fission products Cs-137 and Sr-90, and many others.

        I started my “science” career at the Hanford PUREX plant developing colorimetric methods for remote Plutonium quantitation in process streams. Spent the rest of my career doing research at the associated national lab (PNNL) addressing ultra-trace analysis for various isotopes/ratios of interest, including those above, Uranium (elemental and isotopic profiles), various others and Ca-41 which is of direct interest to paleoclimatology.

        Ex:
        1854. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0584-8547(97)00066-9

        I disagree with the characterization “a minuscule amount of waste.”

        How long do you think it will be until significant SMNR grid penetration is reached (say 20% of national load)? Same question for Thorium breeders?

        IMHO, winners will be energy storage, both for peak demands and intermittents, and continued developments in power electronics and energy control systems.

      • Jungletrunks | February 23, 2025 at 5:51 pm |

        Bab: I disagree with your characterization “a minuscule amount of waste.”

        Before I entertain said characterization, you’ll need to be explicit; what does “minuscule amount of waste” mean, erroneously put in quotes? Your translation to observer’s is a bad Sesame Street Big Bird translation. I’m certain I’m not the only one curious about how you slant your proclivities.

        What the hell do you mean? Why is it so difficult for you to be explicit? Why can’t you be a straight talker?

        First, don’t put words in my mouth. Second, I’m unwilling to revert to translating your abundant obfuscations.

        You may start here: Outline the remaining footprint CO2 has from all the technologies described. Second: describe waste from these leading edge technologies described. I have no clue, you do.

        Polly, you’re a parrot first above all else. You carry no weight, but you’re quite capable of regurgitating talking points. This is what parrots are most good at.

      • B A Bushaw | February 23, 2025 at 8:25 pm |

        Trunks,

        It was/is your characterization. You are the one that needs to define the word minuscule. STML problems? The quotation marks after your moniker mean I was quoting you directly from:

        “Jungketrunks | February 22, 2025 at 4:23 pm | Reply
        Selecting this portion of John’s response from his final para: “nuclear is the answer. No CO2, and a minuscule amount of waste.”

        I agree.”

        Sorry, didn’t bother to read your other demands or comments – no value.

      • Jungletrunks | February 23, 2025 at 9:40 pm |

        John didn’t implicate new technological developments helping to resolve impediments to advancing nuclear uptake, namely resolving the nuclear waste issue, his use of the term minuscule was platitudinal. However, I was aware of Curio’s technology; though I can’t define what minuscule means as it relates to its tech; Curio claims they uses most nuclear waste material in their process for spent nuclear fuel recycling (it’s probably quantified in a white paper), they appear to be going public.

        I could tacitly agree to John’s platitudinal reference, relative to the context he presented it based on what I already knew on the technology front.

        Nuclear it isn’t the concern it once was. You should actually be pleased to hear of such an advancement, instead of being the flapping, squawking activist that you are. No value to your din, indeed.

  2. Christos Vournas | February 19, 2025 at 8:19 am |

    There is not any emergency in any energy transition, because the CO2 doesn’t cause the warming of our planet Earth.

    More importantly, the CO2 is the main food for plants.
    –
    Link: https://www.cristos-vournas.com

  3. Robert Cutler | February 19, 2025 at 8:27 am |

    Thanks for all of the effort you’ve put into this, Russ. It’s going to take a while to digest.

  4. Bill Fabrizio | February 19, 2025 at 9:53 am |

    Fantastic job, Russ. Thank you.

  5. Dante | February 19, 2025 at 10:11 am |

    Regarding “batteries,” here in CA a battery plant burned in Moss Landing. It’s hard to find the cost of the plant, but it seems around $400M, for about 4GWHs of storage.

    But, it doesn’t need to be that way. The Ludington pumped hydro energy storage facility was created to store energy from always on nuclear power plants (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludington_Pumped_Storage_Power_Plant). It cost < $400M to build back in 1950s, and by amount of water stores, has 23,000 GWhs of energy storage.

    While CA can't build anything, it must be possible to build reservoirs in coastal mountains using the Pacific Ocean as the bottom part of the water storage. I have a report of someone in the business that the Sierra club is opposed, however, so while technically possible on the face of it, perhaps it is not politically practical.

  6. Wagathon | February 19, 2025 at 10:42 am |

    ‘Unqualified acceptance of this powerful narrative makes it clear we should all be behind the movement to increase wind and solar generation along with other efforts…’

    Unfortunately, too many of America’s homegrown little Eichmanns and disciples of Mao and Al Gore — blinded by irrational fears of Thermageddon — have lost the ability to repress their natural instinct to tell everyone else what to think, what to do and how to live. With extreme environmentalism as their new religion, they don’t give an ‘achtung’ about the Constitution or personal liberty and responsibility.

    • Chris S | April 11, 2025 at 5:10 pm |

      There is no shortage of people on the left or the right who seem to want to tell people what to think, what to do, and how to live right now. Feels like there is no party left in America that doesn’t want to tell you what to think, what to do, and how to live

      • Wagathon | April 11, 2025 at 11:46 pm |

        The voter registration statistics for California do not support your view– it’s the Democrat party that’ss calling all the shots.

  7. cerescokid | February 19, 2025 at 11:03 am |

    Once again a great article.

    “ A full unraveling deserves a book or series of books.”

    Each element and sub element is worthy of a symposium.

    I’m confident when the autopsies on this narrative are finished later this century, the books will fill libraries.

    “ Academics are a key part of the problem of a sustained false narrative.”

    Applies to many societal problems. Utopia vs Reality

    Thanks for another informative read.

  8. Ulric Lyons | February 19, 2025 at 11:19 am |

    “13.The world is facing severe consequences from increased CO2 emissions.”

    The fear of bad weather is fundamental to climate alarmism, but is there really any connection between global temperature and weather extremes?
    One of the coldest winters of the last 2000 years in 763-764 was during one of the warmest periods of the last 2000 years for northern European summers (Esper 2014).
    The greatest known European heatwave was in the middle of the little ice age, in 1540, plus a major heatwave in the US, and the greatest recorded drought year in Ethiopia.

    The discrete solar forcing of heat and cold waves is the largest noise in the climate signal. Later heliocentric analogues of 1540 were in 1757 (Paris record heatwave), 1936 (US record heatwave), and 2006 (hottest recorded Central England month in July).

    https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vQemMt_PNwwBKNOS7GSP7gbWDmcDBJ80UJzkqDIQ75_Sctjn89VoM5MIYHQWHkpn88cMQXkKjXznM-u/pub

  9. Ireneusz Palmowski | February 19, 2025 at 11:24 am |

    Current temperature in Texas.

    https://i.ibb.co/bMhfSs6V/Screenshot-2025-02-19-17-15-16.png

  10. Mike Hanauer | February 19, 2025 at 11:44 am |

    Overpopulation, and our culture of eternal growth, is the multiplier of virtually every problem we face, including climate change. Growth overwhelms all else you propose combined. Yet, you leave it out. What will it take?

    • Wagathon | February 19, 2025 at 1:44 pm |

      The population of China, the largest of any nation in the world, has been in decline for a couple of years. Seems like it’s the energy/modernity-deprived societies of the world that have the highest birth rates.

    • B A Bushaw | February 19, 2025 at 3:12 pm |

      Mike, nature will take care of it, even if we don’t. Somebody should talk to Elon about it.

  11. Joe K | February 19, 2025 at 11:50 am |

    As Russ notes in #2
    “Average costs are misleading and cost measures such as LCOE are flawed as they do not reflect real world requirements. #8, #3, & #9”

    There are two major flaws in the LCOE computions
    A) LCOE doesnt include the cost for firming, intermedicay, reliability, storage, etc. Those costs are currently borne by fossil fuels. Thus the total costs of renewables is significanly understated. Correcting for that ommission significantly increases the numerator.
    B) A 100% renewable system ( or near 100% renewable system and even high penetration renewables ) requires significant redundant capacity to cover the down times. The need for redundancy results in considerable over capacity during spring and fall while having very limited margin in summer and winter. Current LCOE computation is based on full utilization of electricity generated. However, the need for redundancy results in lots of excess generation. Thus correcting for this results in a much smaller denominator.

    Bottom line – bigger numerator/smaller denominator = a much higher overall LCOE .

  12. brianrlcatt | February 19, 2025 at 1:04 pm |

    The book that best describes this reality was written, years ago, by Sir David MacKay, Chief Scientist of the UK DECC 2008-2015. It is called “Alternative Energy – without the hot air” and is a reference text in this subject.

    https://www.withouthotair.com/

    Other authors include Vaclav Smil, Jesse Ausubel and Caesare Marchetti. To understand the realities and the numbers you have to read MacKay and Smil together, IMO.

    If you can’t understand them you have no business having an opinion on the subject, because you have no formation to judge what will work as required. Just like the politicains and activists.

    David was true CO2 problem believer, but also understood what could work to best transition enrgy supply away from fossil fuels, if and when that was necessary. He gave an interview to a very green activist a few days before his untimely death at 48, explaining why renewables can play no part in a rational energy transition for the UK, at 50 deg North. The reasons are clear and absolute as regards the costed physics, AKA engineering reality. It’s all anybody in Northern latitudes needs to know, but some countries can add hydro.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCyidsxIDtQ

    The problem is simple. Ignorant and corrupt politicians have hi jacked the energy supply for political ends , and to enrich themselves and their crony capitalist friends at the expense of the governed, by creating a whole fabric of provable lies over two decades, that they then used to justify passing laws that make the criminal frauds of renewable energy and re wilding, etc, legal.

    What they have legislated, as regards the supposed justification and its claimed remedy, has no relationship with reality, as any competent engineer can inspect and determine. The “scientists” in academe hooked on this racket have no such competences, but lots of opinions they are provably wrong about without any consequences. Lying in technical sounding pseudo science language, that they have made up for the purpose is what these parasites on the taxpayer do to impose their malignant cancer on our economies, and are paid to do by politicians.

    Most have no understanding of how energy engineering works at scale, but are happy to take the money, and interfere in the energy supply networks that have been optimised by engineers who can over 200 years. Thye impose taxes and subsidies to make what are destructive, regressive and expensive changes to the enrgy systems, at massive costs and with no actual benefits. Based on provable lies about enrgy and climate, that justify a fiscal fraud by law, to make poor choices appear good, and lie about that to people they deliberately mislead with state subsidised propaganda.

    In my view, none of those who have participated in promoting or enacting these crimes against humanity should be allowed to remain in our modern industrial society. We should round them up and give them what they want (for us). Install them on “Natural Island” where mining is not possible, fossil fuels are not available, with livestock, water, etc.

    Their perfect world, “Neolithic Park?” where the rest of us can come and watch them enjoy the perfect World they sell us in their animal skins du jour. Perhaps throw some left over Pizza over the wire. No option to return. The people are poison in a society that depends for its safe, prosperous and healthy existence on the innovation and progress that delivers intense, dispatchable, sustainable, cheap and plentiful energy and the materials we extract to make it all possible, that they are so hostile to the rest of us continuing to enjoy.

    We can give them some windmills, water mills, and draught animals to get started. Some cotton and wool clothes and hand machines to make new from their animals and cotton plants. Some handy rocks for spears and arrows, even some flints to make fire? We can watch their progress as the reality dawns, and what plan for us descends upon them.

    We do not live in harmony with nature. We die in harmony with nature.

    We have spent the last 200 years lifting ourselves above that, to make our environment safer, and our lives more productive, free of the early death, disease, slavery, and hunger, drudgery, sickness and death that went before. All made possible by cheap, plentiful energy to drive our machines, transport, heat our dwellings, and create modern materials , processes and goods. That they would rather we did not have.

    I would rather they lead the example they would have us follow, so we can follow if it works. Douglas Adam’s Golgafrinchan B Ark idea might also work. Just send them off to save them from the end of the Earth – and don’t follow. Pilgrim Fathers 2.0.

    Last words to JFK clipped from his moon speech, which had all this remarkable human achievement the enemies of progress would reverse, because it threatens their control over us and the wealth they extract from us, as he also points out. So well spelled out in a wholly different context.

    “Man is determined,
    and will not be deterred”.

    Especially not by the people who would end our progress and reverse it for their own stupid, ignorant beliefs or crooked, cynical profit and power. Neither have any value to our society. Humankind cannot allow the progress in raising up all its people to be ended by these ignorant, selfish psychopaths within us.
    Read JFK’s lips.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=th5A6ZQ28pE

    I endorse this message :-) CPhys, CEng, MBA

    • Chris S | April 11, 2025 at 5:17 pm |

      Amen to this comment: “Ignorant and corrupt politicians have hi jacked the energy supply for political ends , and to enrich themselves and their crony capitalist friends” Something both the right and left have done. Putin comes to mind.

  13. Mike Dombroski | February 19, 2025 at 4:35 pm |

    “11. We are at a tipping point for renewables. ”

    No, we’re running into a sheer cliff wall.

    • Wagathon | February 19, 2025 at 4:59 pm |

      Has global warming corruption reached a tipping point? The government did more than take over the education system. It also set its sights on a takeover of the country too, using the ‘Tobacco-Model’ of Taxation which is nothing short of a takeover of the pricing, production and distribution of all goods and services in the U.S. As we see with Eurocommunism there is no limit to climate science corruption in academia.

  14. Geoff Sherrington | February 19, 2025 at 6:47 pm |

    Russ,
    Thank you for this review article in a form that can be presented to policy makers.
    Is it emerging that the biggest objection to “renewables” is the lack of any demonstration plant showing 100% is possible? Or even penetration past 50%? Geoff S

    • GC45 | March 25, 2025 at 9:26 am |

      If one includes hydro, Scandinavia is well over 50 %, and Norway alone is around 98 %.
      The real problem for the Nordics is that their system is used as a STEP by Brittain, Germany and the Netherlands, while they have cut themselves off from the balancing capacity of the ex-sovjet grid.

  15. Alan Tomalty | February 19, 2025 at 9:37 pm |

    The author didn’t consider pumped hydro or chemical storage of electricity other than batteries. This is a serious omission of the whole paper

    • Chris Morris | February 19, 2025 at 10:47 pm |

      It has been discussed in a number of the papers he linked to which you haven’t bothered to read before commenting. It was also well covered in the comments on the various other papers.

      Note PE wrote “This posting however challenges the narrative through summary comments with links to previous posts and articles which can be read for a more detailed explanation or for greater depth.”

    • aplanningengineer | February 20, 2025 at 9:12 am |

      Pumped hydro is a great thing, maybe the best, to have on a grid. I helped in early drafts here where Rud talks a lot about storage options: https://judithcurry.com/2015/07/01/intermittent-grid-storage/ Besides those options, I discuss compressed air energy storage briefly in the comments.

      Wind and solar energy can be made to electric energy through various means. Those that involve mechancial turning in synch with the system are grid supportive. Using a bunch of windmills to directly pump water uphill to turn tubines may be the most efficient approach to making wind a valuable grid supporting resource. Skip the invertes and all that.

      Sure these options might should have been in the post now and the should be part of future disucssions. I don’t see them advanced a lot by green advocates which is why I didn’t address them here. In general the processses needed to make storage work are limited by factors around complexity, expense, geographicalconstraints, inefficiency and the like . Not a strong driver, in my opinion,to support a widespread green transition.

      Like f

      • Chris Morris | February 20, 2025 at 12:24 pm |

        PE
        I think another thing that the green advocates don’t want to address is that the storage, be it chemical or water batteries, has to be effectively the same size as the unreliables. generation it is covering. That is for the power requirements. For the energy, solar cover would need several days of winter output and wind maybe a week or more.
        When that reality and its implications, sinks in, it is easy to understand why the “green” energy advocates don’t want to mention it.

      • Joe K | February 20, 2025 at 12:54 pm |

        Concur with CM

        the EIA grid monitor shows massive swings in electric generation from Wind & Solar on a hourly , daily and several day basis.

        Its very doubtfull that any of the renewable advocates have done any form of due diligence to determine how much “over capacity” / “redundant capacity” needs to be built along with storage to cover the periods of low production from wind and solar. As CM notes, and as every country’s grid monitors show, the huge gaps electric generation frequently last from just a few hours to several days.

      • B A Bushaw | February 20, 2025 at 2:52 pm |

        Thanks for the amendment.

      • B A Bushaw | February 20, 2025 at 3:39 pm |

        PE/Chris/Joe,

        Cleaner energy advocates do address storage, in detail. Ignoring it doesn’t make it go away.

        PE is correct, pumped hydro and compressed air look the most viable for longer-term (~4-day), high power (GW) storage. However, there is a wide variety of methods and “sizes” that are applicable in different situations, e.g.: https://www.primergygemini.com/

        https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2022-09/2022%20Grid%20Energy%20Storage%20Technology%20Cost%20and%20Performance%20Assessment.pdf

      • Chris Morris | February 21, 2025 at 9:32 pm |

        As usual BAB, you provide an academic study with little real data – your specialty. The pricing is suspect – coming as it did from another modelling paper for 3rd world countries. To quote that,“The estimation of the cost of a hydropower project is a complex, and enigmatic, task. The present study seeks to propose an alternative methodology to support the initial financial viability of a hydropower scheme located in a developing country (or neighbouring regions).”. Contingency should be on the reservoir, not the powerhouse and what is in it, but that is one of those trivial details academics don’t understand. Running the numbers for a 1GW, 100GWh plant says it will cost $8B. Where was a greenfield one built for that price? How many large hydro pumped storage facilities have been built in US over last 5 years? What were the costs of them?
        There are a lot “planned”, but very few being constructed. Wonder why that is? https://www.hydropower.org/publications/2024-world-hydropower-outlook
        If one takes just one country building pumped storage, Australia, their costs have massively blown out. Haven’t they heard of your study? Or more importantly, has your study heard of them?
        https://reneweconomy.com.au/queensland-pushes-ahead-with-borumba-pumped-hydro-despite-cost-blowout-and-renewable-pause/
        https://reneweconomy.com.au/queensland-premier-says-costs-of-dumped-pioneer-pumped-hydro-project-blew-out-to-37-billion/
        https://reneweconomy.com.au/australias-biggest-engineering-debacle-snowy-2-0-costs-double-again-to-reported-12bn/
        New Zealand had a pumped storage scheme proposal that quadrupled in price before they even got a spade in the ground. That is the worldwide experience.
        Costs are very site specific. It isn’t buying widgets. The geology is always worse than assumed. There needs to new transmission to bring the power to/ from the site to make it a secure node. You need to include those costs. You also need all the surplus generation to supply the power.
        No matter how many zeroes there are the price, the critical thing is can it pay its way? Unsurprisingly, they can’t make their economics work. So do they need subsidies?
        There are facilities built that are useful storage, but almost all use existing facilities. The economics of those plants (as a group) isn’t known. Dinorwig is probably “profitable” but that is because most of the capital costs were paid off supplying support for coal plants and nukes. Now with only running costs (mainly arbitrage), the UK consumer pays a ridiculous price for power.
        Please stop using Google. It is not a substitute for actual understanding. Your comments just reinforce your deserved reputation as a dilettante.

      • Joe K | February 22, 2025 at 3:06 pm |

        As CM stated to BAB –
        “Please stop using Google. It is not a substitute for actual understanding. Your comments just reinforce your deserved reputation as a dilettante.”

        Chris – it is the same story with Bab’s comments on fracturing. He didnt even know what words to use in his google search due to the lack of actual knowledge and understanding. I work on the accounting and financial side of the industry, so I am reasonably familiar with the geology, the engineering and the overall process. Like most every activist, the topic is far outside their and his knowledge base.

  16. Wagathon | February 19, 2025 at 11:35 pm |

    When it comes to effect of energy policy as a result of Leftist government climate change alarmist bureaucrats at work– renewables increase the cost of electricity.

    • Wagathon | February 19, 2025 at 11:44 pm |

      Look to the marketplace of ideas and not the government for the solution– e.g., and electrified locomotive powered by a diesel engine works to the benefit of all because it is a practical solution to a need, not because it is the result of a government edict.

    • melitamegalithic | February 20, 2025 at 4:16 am |

      ” increase the cost of electricity”, From what scant ‘economics’ I studied the cost of electricity is increased by two factors:
      greater demand and lack of supply.

      Looks like both factors are on the increase.

  17. Ireneusz Palmowski | February 20, 2025 at 1:59 am |

    “Rigorous considerations of many complex and interlinking issues between generation and transmission are needed to build and support modern grids. No-one, even those with a lifetime in the business, fully understands everything involved. Experience and incremental changes have served the development and operation of the grid well.”

  18. Ireneusz Palmowski | February 20, 2025 at 2:09 am |

    It is very important to understand that the weather during the winter season in mid-latitudes can always surprise with temperature changes. This is influenced by the circulation in the stratospheric polar vortex and the very low height of the tropopause during the winter season.
    https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat_int/gif_files/gfs_hgt_trop_NA_f000.png
    https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat_int/gif_files/gfs_toz_NA_f000.png

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  20. Rafe Champion | February 20, 2025 at 5:55 am |

    I favour a short and sweet demolition of the suicidal pursuit of net zero using wind and solar along the lines of the ABC of intermittent energy.
    Around the Western world, subsidised and mandated wind and solar power have been displacing conventional power in the electricity supply. Consequently, most of the grids in the west are moving towards a point where the lights will flicker at nights when the wind is low. This is a “frog in the saucepan” effect and it only starts to worry people when it is too late. It may be too late for Britain and Germany.

    https://newcatallaxy.blog/2023/07/11/approaching-the-tipping-point/

    Consider the ABC of intermittent energy generation.
    A. Input to the grid must continuously match the demand.
    B. The continuity of RE is broken on nights with little or no wind.
    C. There is no feasible or affordable large-scale storage to bridge the gaps.

    Therefore, the green transition is impossible with current storage technology.

    The rate of progress towards the tipping point will accelerate as demand is swelled by AI and electrification at large.

    In Australia, the transition to unreliable wind and solar power has just hit the wall, while Britain and Germany have passed the tipping point and entered a “red zone,” keeping the lights on precariously with imports and deindustrialization to reduce demand.

    The meteorologists never issued wind drought warnings and the irresponsible authorities never checked the wind supply! They even missed the Dunkelflautes that must have been known to mariners and millers for centuries!

    https://www.flickerpower.com/images/The_endless_wind_drought_crippling_renewables___The_Spectator_Australia.pdf

    There is an urgent need to find out why the meteorologists failed to warn us about wind droughts and why energy planners didn’t check. Imagine embarking on a major irrigation project without forensic investigation of the water supply including historical rainfall figures.

    https://open.substack.com/pub/rafechampion/p/we-have-to-talk-about-wind-droughts

  21. Rafe Champion | February 20, 2025 at 5:57 am |

    testing

  22. Rafe Champion | February 20, 2025 at 6:02 am |

    There is a short demolition of the futile attempt to run the grid on intermittent wind and solar inputs. The basic problem is wind droughts when there is little or no wind for days on end over continental areas.

    Consider the ABC of intermittent energy generation.

    A. Input to the grid must continuously match the demand.
    B. The continuity of RE is broken on nights with little or no wind.
    C. There is no feasible or affordable large-scale storage to bridge the gaps.

    Therefore, the green transition is impossible with current storage technology.

    https://open.substack.com/pub/rafechampion/p/we-have-to-talk-about-wind-droughts

  23. John Stokes | February 20, 2025 at 7:12 am |

    Thank you. As a non-engineer I do enjoy hearing the thoughts of people who make the world work.

  24. Pingback: Unraveling the Narrative Supporting a Green Energy Transition  – Climate- Science.press

  25. jim2 | February 20, 2025 at 7:52 am |

    I tried to post a quote from an article from Bloomberg, but it went in to the Black Hole. Germany has a plan to ask businesses to be open only when electricity is abundant, and close when the wind don’t blow and the Sun don’t shine. It’s economic suicide.

    • B A Bushaw | February 20, 2025 at 11:13 am |

      It is adaptation because mitigation seems like too much trouble, particularly for linear thinkers that don’t understand non-linear dynamics, chaotic systems, bistable state systems, and the importance of “front loading” to direct the trajectory of such systems.

    • Wagathon | February 20, 2025 at 1:05 pm |

      Wind no blow, Sun no shine, Leftist-approved economy no worky.

      • Jungletrunks | February 20, 2025 at 1:08 pm |

        Agree. Though plenty of anthropomorphic blow.

      • jacksmith4tx | February 20, 2025 at 2:43 pm |

        Did you know fracking causes earthquakes?

        5.0 Earthquake in Texas rips apart natural gas pipeline.
        “A natural gas pipeline in the Permian Basin, West Texas, ruptured following an M5.0 earthquake near Toyah in Reeves County at 05:23 UTC on February 15, 2025”

        Drill baby drill.
        11 earthquakes in the past 24 hours
        120 earthquakes in the past 7 days
        415 earthquakes in the past 30 days
        5,032 earthquakes in the past 365 days
        https://earthquaketrack.com/p/united-states/texas/recent

        I have lived here over 60 years and we never had big earthquakes. NEVER
        I’m just dying to hear the excuses you guys will spin when one of our 60 year old nuclear plants get knocked out by a Mag 6-7 quake.

      • Jungletrunks | February 20, 2025 at 5:11 pm |

        “one of our 60 year old nuclear plants get knocked out by a Mag 6-7 quake.”

        No earthquakes over 5.0 has been caused from fracking. The quake described wasn’t caused by fracking.

        A 5.0 earthquake is considered moderate, a 6.0 releases 30x more energy. Though one earthquake induced by waste fluid injection is documented in scientific literature; a magnitude 5.8 earthquake.

        https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/how-large-are-earthquakes-induced-fluid-injection

      • Jungletrunks | February 20, 2025 at 5:24 pm |

        “one of our 60 year old nuclear plants get knocked out by a Mag 6-7 quake.”

        No earthquakes over 5.0 has been caused from fracking. The quake you describe wasn’t caused by fracking.

        A 5.0 earthquake is considered moderate, a 6.0 releases 30x more energy.

        Though one earthquake induced by waste fluid injection is documented in scientific literature; a magnitude 5.8 earthquake.

        https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/how-large-are-earthquakes-induced-fluid-injection

      • B A Bushaw | February 20, 2025 at 6:06 pm |

        Jungletrunks, thanks for the reference. It also documents a number of other frackquakes with M > 5.0, and cannot discount the possibility of frackquakes triggering major natural faults.

      • Jungletrunks | February 20, 2025 at 6:13 pm |

        Two things to reiterate: not from fracking, and moderate.

        Even the EPA is on board with fluid sequestration.

      • B A Bushaw | February 20, 2025 at 6:42 pm |

        Jungletrunks,

        Ah, so your reference was actually a deflection from fracking. Perhaps this is the USGS document that you hoped to find:

        https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/does-fracking-cause-earthquakes

      • Jungletrunks | February 20, 2025 at 7:04 pm |

        In the very first paragraph of your link:

        “Most induced earthquakes are not directly caused by hydraulic fracturing (fracking). The recent increase in earthquakes in the central United States is primarily caused by disposal of waste fluids that are a byproduct of oil production.”

        My reference was earthquakes of any significance, above 5.0.
        I’m not interested in obtuse pigeon toed dances. Take your concerns up with the EPA.

      • B A Bushaw | February 20, 2025 at 7:27 pm |

        JT: “In the very first paragraph of your link:”

        That’s why I referenced it for you. Try “thanks”, Cassandra.

        “My reference was earthquakes of any significance, above 5.0”

        No, your reference was explicitly about high-pressure waste water injections, which may (accidentally) cause fracking (fracturing).

        “I’m not interested in obtuse pigeon toed dances.”

        Then why do you engage in them using misrepresentations and deflections?

      • Jungltrunks | February 20, 2025 at 7:32 pm |

        Sigh. Hypoxia at work—someone please reconnect this old birds oxygen supply, he’s about to fall off his delusional perch.

      • B A Bushaw | February 20, 2025 at 8:10 pm |

        JT, that sounds a lot like a blustering liar that can’t acknowledge his errors, and then bows out with silly insults, because it is all he has left. But that’s OK, typical NNN response.

        The bigger deflection, or half-truth as some would say, is that the biggest problem with natural gas fracking is not earthquakes, but groundwater contamination. I fully expect the EPA to make that easier under the current administration.

      • Wagathon | February 21, 2025 at 4:10 am |

        ‘Pennsylvania Voters Don’t Think Fracking Is A Big Issue Despite Trump’s Focus On It’ ~NPR Oct. 9, 2020

      • Joe K | February 21, 2025 at 8:41 am |

        “The bigger deflection, or half-truth as some would say, is that the biggest problem with natural gas fracking is not earthquakes, but groundwater contamination. ”

        Yes – your statement is very much a deflection.

        You might consider consulting a geologists, oil and gas industry experts or anyone with basic familiarity with oil and gas formations before opining on subject so far outside your knowledge base.

      • B A Bushaw | February 21, 2025 at 11:47 am |

        Joe K.

        Funny how NNNs like joe resort to obviously false insults when they are confronted with facts that they have willfully ignored. Keep it up, always good to have you demonstrate what you are.

        https://phys.org/news/2022-10-fracking-key-terms-negative-effects.html

      • Joe K | February 21, 2025 at 12:05 pm |

        Bushaw

        Your cited article discussing fracking is a joke. Your response also confirms that the subject is far outside your knowledge base. no one with any actual knowledge of the subject of fracking would have linked that article.

        Demonstrate your knowledge without googling by providing us with :
        A) how ground water gets contaminated
        B) compare and contrast the toxicity of the fracking fluid with the toxicity of the water that resides in the hydrocarbon reservoirs.

      • B A Bushaw | February 21, 2025 at 12:22 pm |

        Joe: No, you are the joke, and being a willfully ignorant NNN doesn’t help.

      • B A Bushaw | February 21, 2025 at 12:36 pm |

        K: “Demonstrate your knowledge without googling by providing us with :
        A) how ground water gets contaminated
        B) compare and contrast the toxicity of the fracking fluid with the toxicity of the water that resides in the hydrocarbon reservoirs.”

        A) pressure and gravity forcing increased penetration through surrounding layers that have been fractured by said high pressure.

        B) I can’t – I don’t know what is in them; the fracking fluids are propriatary and the oil field waste water is inhomogeneous. Maybe you could drink a glass of each and tell us which you like more.

        More imporant, maybe you could refute some of the things in the article I cited, instead of making a fool of yourself dismissing it as joke.

      • Joe K | February 21, 2025 at 1:01 pm |

        Bushaw

        I work with quite a few individuals in the industry, as such I have good working knowledge of the fracking, the geology, the reservoirs, etc.

        As I stated, the subject vastly exceeds your knowledge base.
        Both your answers show that you are exceptionally far out of your depth.

        Both of your answers are based on delusions and distortions pushed by ill informed activists.

      • B A Bushaw | February 21, 2025 at 1:34 pm |

        K,

        So you can’t refute the article. You are still a NNN, and your claims are not supported. Please, continue to make a fool of yourself, as you have been doing for months, with your half- and zero-truth, no evidence, personal opinions and false insults.

        As for knowledge base: what have you done that has contributed to the knowledge base of science? I will presume nothing, unless you can prove otherwise. The knowledge base that you get from “knowing people in the industry”, must be pretty superficial if you can’t explain or defend it, or use it to refute things you willfully ignore.

        Hope you feel better soon – your contentless intrusions are getting boring.

  26. Pingback: Unraveling the Narrative Supporting a Green Energy Transition     | Last Chance For Freedom

  27. Luis Gutierrez | February 20, 2025 at 10:55 am |

    Consistent:

    The End of Climate-Change Idealism: Facing Geopolitical and Economic Reality
    Art Berman, Shattering Energy Myths, 19 February 2025
    https://www.artberman.com/blog/the-end-of-climate-change-idealism-facing-geopolitical-and-economic-reality/

  28. Pingback: Unraveling the Narrative Supporting a Green Energy Transition. | ajmarciniak

  29. Rafe Champion | February 21, 2025 at 2:13 am |

    There are some insurmountable problems with installing enough storage to handle wind droughts of several days or even weeks duration.
    Pumped hydro. There is no large pumped hydro scheme anywhere in the world where all the pumping is done with wind and solar power.
    The cost of batteries to cover three or more successive nights with little or no wind is too much for any national budget to sustain.
    In case the necessary amount of storage is built (somehow) it will never be fully charged by wind and solar power. When can we ever expect wind and solar to to provide a massive excess of generation over demand for many days or even weeks?

    • Christos Vournas | February 21, 2025 at 8:43 am |

      The storage facilities are reliable the faster the charging -recharging cycles.
      –
      Earth is warmer than Moon, because Earth rotates faster.
      –
      https://www.cristos-vournas.com

    • B A Bushaw | February 21, 2025 at 11:39 am |

      Rafe,

      Straw man: there is no need to use 100% renewables to charge storage systems. Excess energy storage is useful (even critically important) for meeting peak demands, regardless of the generation source.

      You can search “gravity energy storage”, if you’d like to know how the problems you believe to be “insurmountable” are being addressed.

      • Wagathon | February 21, 2025 at 11:57 am |

        Meanwhile, Calicommies are busy tearing down dams.

      • DAVID Allen APPELL | February 23, 2025 at 8:10 pm |

        Meanwhile, Calicommies are busy tearing down dams.

        So you want your species to be saved, but no others.

        Yeah, that attitude is what’s caused the problem in the first place.

      • DAVID APPELL | February 23, 2025 at 8:12 pm |

        At this point any and all new energy sources have to be non-carbon emitting.

        How much more climate change do you want?

      • jim2 | February 24, 2025 at 8:26 am |

        More CO2 + more rainfall = more Plants. Bring on the “climate change”!!!

  30. UK-Weather Lass | February 21, 2025 at 4:30 am |

    Nature can store energy on a huge scale. How many daily storms are there?

    Humans can manage comparatively small energy scale storage in very specific and certain circumstances or conditions which is why nuclear was such a rich vein of new possibilities at the outset. Any energy that on release can be made to match demand is worth investigating but we are not at any special pinnacle of achievement with that just now.

    Indeed safe storage and safe release are still really big issues (look at recent battery accidents). I think outlier solutions are required to help us out but so called ‘Green Stuff’ may be holding things up as we focus on the wrong things e.g. the virtue signals instead of the progress.

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  32. Aplanningengineer | February 21, 2025 at 4:00 pm |

    Someone suggested Judith and I were in the pay of big oil. Had this discussion with grok. AI comes to our defense. https://x.com/i/grok/share/4TlYwKkqlrOKrMDxpg2KP8vca

    • cerescokid | February 21, 2025 at 4:39 pm |

      Those who do that are automatically on the “pay no never mind” list.

      I have about a dozen alert statements that instantly tell me they can be easily dismissed. That one is up there at the top.

  33. DAVID Allen APPELL | February 23, 2025 at 8:04 pm |

    Old people see problems. Young people see opportunities.

    I get it–older engineers don’t want to meet the needs of society. This can’t be done, that can’t be done, nothing can be done. We MUST keep using what they provided. Just give up and keep altering the climate and polluting the atmosphere. Too bad so sad.

    It’s young engineers and scientists who will pave the way to the future. As always. They don’t need posts like this, and won’t even read them. Why would they?

    What do they know that the post’s author does not?

    “Renewables provided 90% of new US capacity in 2024 – FERC,”
    https://electrek.co/2025/02/07/renewables-90-percent-new-us-capacity-2024-ferc/

    • B A Bushaw | February 23, 2025 at 8:49 pm |

      EIA seems to agree, projecting that only renewables and battery storage will have any significant growth through 2027.

      https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=64364
      https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=64126

      • B A Bushaw | February 25, 2025 at 1:43 pm |

        PE, it is not one year – are you able to read graphs?

        https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=64364

        It covers 6 years, and the growth of all electrical capacity sources is given, in absolute energy values.

        Many more details are given in the FERC report.

        Perhaps you should look at something before you try, and fail, it to deny it.

      • Joe K | February 25, 2025 at 1:49 pm |

        BAB – in the course of this thread you have linked 3 EIA reports, two of which are only for one year.

        You have frequently posted single year data from EIA

        Absolutely a prick move to insult PE when you almost alwys link to on year data from the EIA

      • Joe K | February 25, 2025 at 2:11 pm |

        PE got it correct

    • Aplanningengineer | February 25, 2025 at 12:59 pm |

      I think I’ve discussed what they know. It’s easier to go along in the short term. The grid is robust and there are incentives to go green.

      What meaning do you take from the fact that 90% of the new capacity in one year is of a particular type? Might be more meaningful if it were in terms of the total capacity already installed. It certainly doesn’t contradict anything in the above posting.

      • B A Bushaw | February 25, 2025 at 2:04 pm |

        What I take from it is that “one type” of electricity generation capacity accounts for almost all growth, and that growth is more/faster than previous years. I take it to mean the energy transition is accelerating, regardless if retired engineers are terribly biased and confused about it.

  34. jim2 | February 24, 2025 at 8:38 am |

    January 2025 was NOT the hottest January EVA! February isn’t going to be the hottest February either. What’s a “climate change” zealot to do?

  35. Wagathon | February 24, 2025 at 6:17 pm |

    The idea of an accurate average global temperature is bogus to begin with. We have no surface temperatures at all for most of Earth’s surface. Modern measurements are systemically biased upward due to the improper siting of official thermometers, in cities and at airports, such that ‘tarmac’ and ‘urban heat island effects’ have corrupted the data. And, it is a joke to pretend that historical land measurements were ever meant to be considered accurate to a hundredth of a degree (more like rounded to the nearest whole degree in the eye of the beholder).

    • Wagathon | February 24, 2025 at 6:26 pm |

      The only vestige of free enterprise capitalism in Western academia is, if you pay a climate change researcher to find the heat, they will find it. There’s no utility in it whatsoever other than as a tool to ride the backs of the productive and suck their blood like leeches on the back of a hog.

    • cerescokid | February 24, 2025 at 9:23 pm |

      On the graph (C) they show land coverage back to 1880 for temperatures across the globe. It appears they had ~12% coverage in the Southern Hemisphere and under 50% coverage for the Northern Hemisphere in 1880 and probably less in 1850.

      Anyone who thinks this was sufficient sampling and accurately representing global temperatures for 1850 must have been drunk in their stats class.

      https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/station_data_v4/

      The knowledge about SST is even more dreadful since pre 1900 they only had data from the Challenger expedition.

      Only in climate science would this be taken seriously.

  36. Wagathon | February 24, 2025 at 9:32 pm |

    A simple truism that Hot World Catastrophists in Western academia apparently cannot understand is that, it takes more not less energy to make clean energy.

    • Wagathon | February 24, 2025 at 9:42 pm |

      Even AI misses many of the hidden energy costs associated with making clean energy, not to mention the high energy cost of AI itself, the postulated benefits of which could never be realized using a patchwork of windmills and solar panels.

  37. Pingback: Stop These Things’ Weekly Round Up: 25 February 2025. | ajmarciniak

  38. B A Bushaw | February 25, 2025 at 10:26 am |

    Kid,

    Uh-oh.

    The GlaMBIE Team. Community estimate of global glacier mass changes from 2000 to 2023. Nature (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-08545-z

    • Wagathon | February 25, 2025 at 10:42 am |

      I The last of waste- ‘the team’ steps on its integrity and craps on its ethics from the very first sentence.

      • Joe K | February 25, 2025 at 10:49 am |

        Now do global glacier mass loss by decade starting back circa 1850

      • Wagathon | February 25, 2025 at 10:53 am |

        The Cryospheric Sciences are the latest trans athletes of Western academia…

      • B A Bushaw | February 25, 2025 at 11:19 am |

        Joe, you may perform that deflection if you think it will refute the ice loss since 2000 (about 5.5% of global ice volume), otherwise, I’m not interested; and don’t tell me what to do. Do you understand the concept of acceleration? If so, and you decide to undertake the analysis, it would be worthwhile to include rates, both absolute and percentages. Thanks, I look forward to your results.

      • Joe K | February 25, 2025 at 11:47 am |

        BAB – my question is addressing the climate scientists deflection. There has been considerable glacier loss since circa 1850,. Using a start date of 2000 omits important context and historical analysis.

        We have already discussed the misuse of selected start dates. Why would want to continue deflecting from important data.

    • B A Bushaw | February 25, 2025 at 2:24 pm |

      Historically unprecedented global glacier decline in the early 21st century. Journal of Glaciology, 61(228), 745–762. https://doi.org/10.3189/2015jog15j017

      See Table 2: “Regional [and global ice] mass-balance results 1851–2010.

      Joe, you crack me up. You want to attack so bad it must hurt – you make a fool of yourself every time. Keep it up.

  39. B A Bushaw | February 25, 2025 at 12:05 pm |

    What does “considerable” mean? Can you compare percentage mass loss in the period of, say, 1850 – 1873 or 1900 – 1923, to the cited results for 2000 – 2023?

    What important data? Give a reference! The reason for starting around c. 2000 is obvious, even if you don’t understand it: it is when satellite measurements of elevation and density became available to evaluate the major polar ice masses.

    And yes, it is no surprise that glaciers have generally been retreating throught the industrial age. What is important is the increasing rate, as shown in the cited paper (where is yours?). Your silly deflections are not.

    • Chris Morris | March 1, 2025 at 2:12 pm |

      If you want to discuss glacial retreat, why start at 1850, let alone 2000?. Because they are long lived phenomena, it needs to be in the context of the last 20k years. In that, there have been retreats greater and faster than that of the last 200 years. There have also been advances too.
      And to keep BAB happy, here is a reference: The Geology of New Zealand, Volume 2, (ISBN 0 447 01034) Upper Quaternary: Glacial & related cold-climate deposits pp592- 627 –

      • B A Bushaw | March 2, 2025 at 10:19 am |

        Because I, and the paper in question, are discussing global ice loss, (not New Zealand or Europe); global ice loss comes mostly from the polar regions, but is unknown with any sort of accuracy before satellites. Hope you are happy with another failed insult attempt. Read the paper before you continue to make a fool of yourself. I hope such childish anger makes CM feel better about himself.

  40. Pingback: SCIENCE, CLIMATE, ENERGY AND POLITICAL NEWS ROUNDUP 2025 FEBRUARY | wryheat

  41. cerescokid | March 1, 2025 at 11:05 am |

    It must be in the water…..or maybe it’s the Trump Effect.

    “ The pursuit of net zero carbon emissions has been a resounding failure. Despite trillions of dollars spent on renewable energy, hydrocarbons still account for over 80%, opens new tab of the world’s primary energy and a similar share of recent increases in energy consumption, according to The Energy Institute. Coal, oil and natural gas production are at record highs. Emissions of greenhouse gases continue to rise inexorably. The financial markets were already losing confidence in the energy transition before Donald Trump returned to the White House. A more realistic approach to climate policy is urgently needed.”

    https://www.reuters.com/breakingviews/climate-policy-requires-more-realistic-approach-2025-02-28/

  42. Wagathon | March 1, 2025 at 5:40 pm |

    ….oops, Roger Randall Dougan Revelle

  43. Pingback: Energy Realism: US Secretary And Oil Giants Challenge Renewable Replacement Narrative - SustainablePowerNews

  44. Douglas Cotton | March 20, 2025 at 11:30 pm |

    The only correct physics relating to surface and sub-surface temperatures

    It is assumed in climatology circles that the “science” is determined by consensus. Einstein was an individual whose unique explanation of certain physics was rubbished by “consensus” of the time, but subsequently proven correct.

    To ascertain what determines surface temperatures of planets like Earth and Venus or those at the base of nominal tropospheres of planets like Uranus where it is hotter than Earth’s surface, one needs to think outside the square, because the existing energy diagrams imply that these temperatures are determined primarily by radiation (solar radiation plus back radiation) but that is simply not the case.

    The Stefan Boltzmann Law never gives a correct resulting temperature for the sum of radiative fluxes from two or more surfaces. But climatologists assume it does – a claim easily refuted with simple experiments.

    The solar radiation reaching the surface of Venus is less than 15% of that reaching Earth’s surface, and no solar radiation at all reaches the base of the Uranus troposphere where there is no solid surface and also no compelling evidence of any cooling of the planet as a whole.

    What supplies all the necessary thermal energy on Venus and Uranus (and most of that on Earth) is the non-radiative process discovered and explained for the first time anywhere in world literature by scientist Douglas Cotton in his 2013 paper “Planetary Core and Surface Temperatures” on Researchgate and elsewhere.

    Nobody has ever proved Cotton wrong. The consensus conjecture effectively assumes (as shown in energy budget diagrams) that less than 1% of the atmosphere can transfer into the warmer surface by “back radiation” about double that which solar radiation imparts to the surface. If you choose to believe that is possible, so be it.

  45. Physicist | March 20, 2025 at 11:32 pm |

    The correct physics relating to surface and sub-surface temperatures

    It is assumed in climatology circles that the “science” is determined by consensus. Einstein was an individual whose unique explanation of certain physics was rubbished by “consensus” of the time, but subsequently proven correct.

    To ascertain what determines surface temperatures of planets like Earth and Venus or those at the base of nominal tropospheres of planets like Uranus where it is hotter than Earth’s surface, one needs to think outside the square, because the existing energy diagrams imply that these temperatures are determined primarily by radiation (solar radiation plus back radiation) but that is simply not the case.

    The Stefan Boltzmann Law never gives a correct resulting temperature for the sum of radiative fluxes from two or more surfaces. But climatologists assume it does – a claim easily refuted with simple experiments.

    The solar radiation reaching the surface of Venus is less than 15% of that reaching Earth’s surface, and no solar radiation at all reaches the base of the Uranus troposphere where there is no solid surface and also no compelling evidence of any cooling of the planet as a whole.

    What supplies all the necessary thermal energy on Venus and Uranus (and most of that on Earth) is the non-radiative process discovered and explained for the first time anywhere in world literature in this 2013 paper “Planetary Core and Surface Temperatures” on Researchgate and elsewhere.

    Nobody has ever proved the above paper wrong. The consensus conjecture effectively assumes (as shown in energy budget diagrams) that less than 1% of the atmosphere can transfer into the warmer surface by “back radiation” about double that which solar radiation imparts to the surface. If you choose to believe that is possible, so be it.

  46. jacksmith4tx | March 21, 2025 at 8:33 am |

    AI just put your local weather man out of a job.

    Aardvark – AI-Powered Weather Forecasting System offering hyper-local forecast on your desktop
    https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/fully-ai-driven-weather-prediction-system-could-start-revolution-in-forecasting

    This will run on your desktop computer and produce a weather forecast in just a few minutes.

    “The researchers say that one of the most exciting aspects of Aardvark is its flexibility and simple design. Because it learns directly from data it can be quickly adapted to produce bespoke forecasts for specific industries or locations, whether that’s predicting temperatures for African agriculture or wind speeds for a renewable energy company in Europe.
    …
    With Aardvark researchers have replaced the entire weather prediction pipeline with a single, simple machine learning model. The new model takes in observations from satellites, weather stations and other sensors and outputs both global and local forecasts.”
    https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/fully-ai-driven-weather-prediction-system-could-start-revolution-in-forecasting

    More here: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/mar/20/ai-aardvark-weather-prediction-forecasting-artificial-intelligence

    “This is a completely different approach to what people have done before. The writings on the wall that this is going to transform things, it’s going to be the new way of doing forecasting,” Turner said. He said the model would eventually be able to produce accurate eight-day forecasts, compared with five-day forecast at present, as well as hyper-localized predictions.

    This is going to put Judith’s Climate Forecast Applications Network (CFAN) out of work.

  47. Wagathon | March 21, 2025 at 11:30 am |

    Houston, we have a problem. There is no global warming so what are we fighting? A solution would be to understand that climate changes all the time and there’s nothing we can do about it. Understanding is the real solution because only then can we begin to fight to find the solution to a growing global energy shortage.

    • melitamegalithic | March 21, 2025 at 4:02 pm |

      Reword:
      “A solution would be to understand that climate changes” – period. The big changes come every ~490 yrs – big-time. That is what we need to understand.
      “Understanding is the real solution because only then can we begin to” prepare for change.

      • Wagathon | March 21, 2025 at 4:30 pm |

        Good, good and… a further reword–

        ‘… only then can we prepare to’ fight, fight, fight for integrity, ethics and honesty to Western academia in furtherance of humanity’s search for truth.