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Unraveling the Narrative Supporting a Green Energy Transition     

curryja

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

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

4.Renewable resources are inexhaustible and widely available.

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

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.  #43, #41, #3, & #19

10.Battery improvements will enable the green energy transition.

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

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

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, and 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

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.

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.

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

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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