…is the most expensive policy disaster in modern British history.
It didn’t work out well for Spain, either. Or Germany.
14 thoughts on ““Renewable” Energy”
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…is the most expensive policy disaster in modern British history.
It didn’t work out well for Spain, either. Or Germany.
Comments are closed.
Meanwhile, here in the United States of Delusion, the DOE is projecting wind power could supply 35% of our electricity by 2050.
Hmm maybe but we might run out of birds. Then what would we sacrifice to make the Mother Gaia happy?
It’s like Communism – no matter how many times it fails, the lesson is never learned.
While I was in engineering school, I picked up a copy of Mark’s Handbook, current edition (ca 1977). It had a big section on energy, and all of the alternatives known at the time. One thing I recall from it was that a survey of all available sites and their wind statistics was done, and, independently of any consideration of turbine size or efficiency, it showed that there was not enough wind energy available to supply more that 8% of US needs. That was our needs as of the 70s. Delusion is right…
Using the Physics of Wishful Thinking, anything is possible!
In what way is Germany’s renewable energy initiative a disaster?
Residential electricity costs double most of their neighbors.
In what way is it a success?
I think this dovetails neatly for some investors with the fossil fuel divestment strategy supported by a UN agency. Someone needs to be holding the bag when the renewable energy sector goes south. And I can think of no finer bag holders than the pension and investment funds of the world.
Expensive for some, lucrative for others, thanks to all those ‘renewable’ subsidies.
I understand many of Spain’s wind-power projects are in La Mancha.
I think it’s obvious that the world will spend far more money on alternative
ways to make electrical power, we will spend on making a SPS for Earth which will provide 50% or more of global electrical power needs- especially when one counts the cost of money and/or inflation.
So total amount wasted on solar and wind will be less than the total amount in invested to provide cheap electrical prices for people living
on Earth. And of course zero CO2 emission from making such power system function.
So the alternative energy programs will never make much of electrical power needed and costs more than 10 times what it should and it’s source of trouble in general and specifically a problem related to governmental corruption. And to cap it all, does not reduce CO2 levels.
As compared to SPS which will lower global electrical costs, lower CO2 emission [significantly] and deliver a real alternative way to get electrical power that is a significant portion of electrical demand, and in terms of total costs be less. Almost less than what already wasted, but we on trajectory to waste much more money within next decade.
Of course we are not ready to do SPS for Earth at this point in time, first we need to lower electrical power to about $1 per kw hour in space, before *planning* to do this, but reaching such price point in space environment is possible within a couple decades, if we add new markets in space.
So not just have the current satellite market, but also get rocket fuel market in space, commercial lunar water mining, other types of lunar mining and things like Mars settlement [all settlements are market places and must have numerous kinds of markets- so not NASA bases, but settlements], and such things as commercial suborbital markets.
So once we get more markets in space, then we can consider the largest market in space, which would be harvesting solar energy and exporting to Earth.
There’s going to be a big solar eclipse across much of Europe tomorrow (the 20th). There are concerns that the sudden decrease in solar electric energy is going to put a strain on their power grid. I think this is likely overblown. You get transitory decreased in solar electric production when a cloud blocks the sun and bigger decreases on cloudy days. The eclipse will be across much of Europe so its effects will be widespread but if they don’t have enough backup gas turbines to make up the shortfall, they could have issues for an hour or so.
At this time of year and at high latitudes, the sun at noon will reach about 30 degree above horizon. And the solar eclipse will occur around noon.
And equinox means 12 hours of daylight with about 6 hour of the 12 being useable solar energy. So going remove about 1 hour from the 6 or roughly reduce the solar power by 20% for the day- if the day was otherwise cloudless.
If it were summer time one would lose a lower percentage but more available solar flux would lost.
So Germany apparently has “38,359 megawatts (MW) by January 2015”- wiki- of solar power. That based on noon sun and summer, and around this time of year with low angle of noon sun, it around 600 watt per square meter, say 30% less. 38,359 times .7 is 26851 megawatts.
And wholesale power is about $100 per MW hour [or much less] so
dollar amounts it’s about 1/4 million at most for Germany and say less than 1 million dollar for entire region.
And regional cloudiness could easily vary this dollar amount by more than a million dollar plus or minus per day. So regionally unusually clear weather or cloudy weather could have far greater affects than this solar eclipse.