Tag Archives: Global Warming

Renewable Scam

Posted on by
1

This week, the Colorado Legislature debated HB1001, a proposal to require utilities to get 30% of their electricity from so called renewable energy sources within ten years, up from close to zero today. Not only is the proposal ill-conceived and expensive, it is technically impossible too. Best of all, according to Colorado Democrats, utility rates will increase no more than 2% as a result of the program. Better than best of all, Colorado Democrats claim that the new regulations will bring more jobs to the state.

Where to begin? For starters, consider that despite what lame duck Gov. Ritter (D) says, no appreciable amount of renewable energy comes from solar, and it never will. Solar is prohibitively expensive and its cost would have to fall 10x before it could compete with wind power, and 30x to compete with coal. Ritter imagines 100,000 homes with solar panels on their roofs, but that $4bln program would not even make a dent in the 30% goal because Colorado has 1.7 million households. With solar, Ritter’s goal would cost more like $50bln. Solar is completely impractical, which is supported by the fact that it currently provides approximately none of the nation’s electricity, despite decades of government subsidies.

What about wind? Wind is better, only costing about 3-4x that of coal. States like Texas already generate a lot of wind power, albeit less than 5% of their electricity. With taxpayer subsidies, at least wind can make a dent in the renewable goal, but nowhere near 30%. That is because, while the wind does not blow all the time, Americans expect their hospitals and traffic lights to work 24/7. In Denmark, where the wind blows constantly off shore and everyone lives near the turbines, penetration is 20%. Since in Colorado the wind can sometimes not blow for a week at a time, and often does not blow during peak summer demand, the local utility must always have a backup source ready – usually natural gas turbines. That is a hidden cost of wind and solar – not only are renewables more expensive, but the system must also provide a backup source of power.

The payoff from wind power declines with each new turbine. An armada of turbines will generate more electricity than can be consumed when the wind blows, but even an infinite number of turbines generate zero power when the wind does not blow. As the number of turbines increases, their capacity will be wasted when the wind blows, yet they will do nothing when the wind does not blow, meaning there is an upper limit to wind power’s penetration regardless of the number of turbines. In the 1980′s the IEEE published a study suggesting that the maximum penetration of wind power would be 10%. More recently, experts think the penetration could be increased to 20% by building an extremely high voltage transmission grid, along with a system to shut off non-critical machines when the wind does not blow (i.e. smart grid). Now, despite the fact that environmentalists oppose smart grid construction, they want wind penetration to reach 30%.

The only way to achieve 30% renewable energy penetration is with power storage. Power storage would probably consist of millions of car batteries that would charge when the wind blows and power homes when the wind stops. A 2004 IEEE study showed that storage costs increase non-linearly as storage time increases (i.e. two hours’ storage costs more than twice one hour’s). This is because the system needs ever more windmills to charge the batteries when the wind does blow. A 30% penetration system would require massive storage capacity. Again, Ritter thinks all this can be achieved with a 2% rate increase.

Nobody has ever achieved 10% renewable penetration in the US, let alone the 20% that is currently Colorado law. 30% is not only prohibitively expensive, it is practically impossible. Of course Ritter is a politician, not an engineer. In his world, sweeping unachievable mandates are called visionary. To Ritter and the environmentalists, exposing the reality of HB1001′s costs amounts to greed and ‘putting profits before people.’

Of course nuclear is off the table. Anyway, a nuclear plant could not be built by 2020, even if it would cost less than 1/10 that of solar.

Where is the local utility, Xcel, in this debate? Silent, or more exactly bought off. During the original debate to set the mandate at 20%, Xcel dropped its opposition when it realized renewables were good for profits. Xcel, like most utilities is rate of return regulated. Xcel is allowed to recover a percent of its capital investment each year, plus the cost of operations like buying coal and driving repair trucks. Since renewables require many times the capital investment of coal, Xcel actually profits from renewable mandates. The next time Xcel calls itself ‘green,’ remember that it is really green with greed at the expense of ratepayers.

Back to what is best of all. Ritter claimed that because Colorado will pursue the impossible goal of 30% wind penetration, green companies would create jobs in Colorado. In Ritter’s mind, these companies would come to Colorado because they feel good about consuming expensive renewable electricity. Guess again, Governor. Turbines are made mostly in China where there are no steel tariffs, and the electricity comes from dirty coal. Green companies are still companies and when costs rise, they go elsewhere. Also, don’t forget all the evil non-green jobs Ritter’s new regulations would kill off.

With any luck Ritter’s mission to eliminate Colorado’s industrial economy won’t get far. Still, the fact that Democrats are trying is quite a shock to anyone who likes affordable electricity and the millions of Colorado jobs that depend on it. Here’s hoping that HB1001 represents the high water mark of the extreme left’s efforts to ruin Colorado’s prosperity.

We Need a Scientific Reformation

Posted on by
2

On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther vandalized a church door with a nail; also, he hung his treatise on indulgences on that nail and changed the world. While selling indulgences is clearly an act of chicanery to modern minds, our critical ability to differentiate God’s authority from church authority is largely accredited to Luther and this moment. Luther pulled the curtain away from the wizard, encouraging people to know God by reading the Bible in German, rather than a dead language spoken only by the clergy. Luther charged people to take responsibility for their own spiritual lives through direct study, bypassing a flawed papal hierarchy. Today, with raging debates over global warming, we badly need a scientific reformation.

Today, science is akin to medieval Catholicism; science is largely regarded as pronouncements from cloistered men in white robes. If ‘scientists’ say that salt is unhealthy, it must be so. If ‘scientists’ say that silicone breast implants, Saccharine, Alar, DDT, or tuna are harmful, then it must be so. Reporters, the traditional gatekeepers of public knowledge, rarely mention the names or qualifications of the scientists who propose such implausible, and often ultimately false, ideas. In their eyes, if scientists proclaim a new truth, nobody is qualified to challenge it.

Science is not the pontification of scientists; science is a process whereby hypotheses are presented, scrutinized, rejected, or modified. Science is not the truth, but a means by which one can pursue the truth. Likewise, there is no license to being a scientist. When someone proclaims himself a scientist, that simply means he doesn’t have a regular job. Anyone who thinks skeptically, values objective evidence, and allows that he may be wrong is a scientist (with or without a white robe). Indeed, in this modern world, everyone should be a scientist. The Protestant Reformation gave laypeople the power of the priests, and the scientific reformation should give laypeople the power of the scientists.

Nowhere is the need for a scientific reformation greater than in the field of climate studies. The recent Climate Gate scandal exposed how a powerful few scientists have bullied and excluded competing theories and evidence from challenging the dogma that global warming is an emergency with only one solution: the extermination of prosperity.

The laypeople of Germany before Luther viewed the mysteries of the Church as beyond their grasp. They weren’t qualified to understand the Bible and the Church’s rituals. Learning to read and criticize such things was too hard, and frowned upon as well. Today, most anyone can read the Bible when he chooses, and when he sees a charlatan, he can call him out.

The scientific laypeople of today largely view science as too hard, and the scientific publications as too mysterious for them to fathom. Science is best left to those odd nerds who, like monks, give up sex to pursue the deep mysteries of life. Climate Gate, however, demonstrates that as Christianity could not be trusted to priests, science cannot be trusted to the scientists.

Further, there is nobody to blame but ourselves. Much of the US is willing to turn over the very future of capitalism to a mob of self-interested scientists without doing any homework. Everyone should know that we cannot trust the leftist media or socialist politicians to fairly examine the facts; there is nobody left but ourselves to do some heavy lifting. So, the next time someone starts a sentence with “I’m not a scientist, but,” stop him short and ask why not.