Research: The costs of renewables underestimated!

[skookerasbil]

An exceedingly long read here but absolutely fatal to advocates of wind and solar. This shit is even far more expensive than I thought!!! Has a future but will remain a fringe energy source like Ive been saying for 20 years.

Article goes deeply into the mega-costs of "intermittent" renewables........something I knew little about before reading this article. Didn't know almost all renewable energy is intermittent. Also.....everything you see in here from the climate crusaders on pricing does not include any mention of projections on future increase in subsidies as the pricing increases ( due to staggering costs of building transmission lines for example )

Renewable energy is a scam and always has been as scam...........and most interesting is from this article, the reduction of CO2 has been vastly overstated by advocates of renewables!!


There may be some cases where intermittent renewables are helpful additions without buffering (especially when the current fuel is oil, and wind or solar can help reduce fuel usage), but there are likely to be many other instances where the costs involved greatly exceed the benefits gained.

If we look at recently published information about how much intermittent electricity is being added to the electric grid, the amounts are surprisingly small. Overall, worldwide, the amount of electricity generated by a combination of wind and solar (nearly all of it intermittent) was 5.2% in 2016. On an area by area basis, the percentages of wind and solar are as shown in Figure 1.




















http://www.theenergycollective.com/gail-tverberg/2409208/researchers-underestimating-cost-wind-solar

 

[Mikeoxenormous]

An exceedingly long read here but absolutely fatal to advocates of wind and solar. This shit is even far more expensive than I thought!!! Has a future but will remain a fringe energy source like Ive been saying for 20 years.

Article goes deeply into the mega-costs of "intermittent" renewables........something I knew little about before reading this article. Didn't know almost all renewable energy is intermittent. Also.....everything you see in here from the climate crusaders on pricing does not include any mention of projections on future increase in subsidies as the pricing increases ( due to staggering costs of building transmission lines for example )

Renewable energy is a scam and always has been as scam...........and most interesting is from this article, the reduction of CO2 has been vastly overstated by advocates of renewables!!


There may be some cases where intermittent renewables are helpful additions without buffering (especially when the current fuel is oil, and wind or solar can help reduce fuel usage), but there are likely to be many other instances where the costs involved greatly exceed the benefits gained.

If we look at recently published information about how much intermittent electricity is being added to the electric grid, the amounts are surprisingly small. Overall, worldwide, the amount of electricity generated by a combination of wind and solar (nearly all of it intermittent) was 5.2% in 2016. On an area by area basis, the percentages of wind and solar are as shown in Figure 1.




















http://www.theenergycollective.com/gail-tverberg/2409208/researchers-underestimating-cost-wind-solar

Why am I not surprised. When Solyndra, the jewel of Obama's renewable energy dream went belly up, losing 1/2 billion dollars of OUR money, you knew that liberals were getting rich on our taxes, while Obama put more in poverty. And the stupid ass liberals went Obaaaaahmaah, Obaaaahmaah, like the good little eichmen that they are. The problem with the Global Warming Religious Zelots, is that you can give them proof that they are being deceived, yet they wont deny their leaders.

 

[usmbguest5318]

I appreciate your offering as a discussion rubric something that doesn't appear to be the typical purely partisan rhetoric that pervades USMB members' posts. TY for that. It's refreshing to say the least.

I have just began reading (thus analyzing) Tverberg's essay and related linked supporting content (I haven't yet evaluated her calculations.). A couple things have lept out at me, and I'll share them now, though I have to see to what overall extent she depends on these factors to establish her point.

• Tverberg asserts, seemingly, only that the cost of some forms of renewable energy has been underestimated.
  • For energy producers, the cost doesn't need to be estimated. They know what it costs them to produce it. What's the nature of Tverberg's extrapolation on an industry level? I have to keep reading to find out....I intend to, but it may take some time; it's not the only or most important thing I want to do today...
• When Tverberg writes of the cost of renewable energy sources, she's referring to the total cost of production, transmission and distribution [1], including subsidies that may apply in any of those stages in the process. (She may also mean to include subsidies on the consumption end. I don't yet know if she does. I'll know when I finish reading her essay.) Given the nature of the energy industry, it's important to keep mindful of the segregation or disaggregation of energy industry firms. Failing to do so can yield skewed views of the costs by not comparing, measuring, etc. "apples to apples." I don't know if that's something going on in (in big way, small way, medium way, or in no way) Tverberg's analysis, but it's something I'll be looking for.
• Tverberg notes that the Danes have to keep increasing the absolute dollar value of their subsidies. Reading the supporting document Tverberg linked, one finds that the reason for that is that the use of wind power lowers the variable cost of energy, thereby reducing the gross revenues, thus profitability, of energy producers.
  
  That's not shocking for energy demand doesn't increase merely because a given energy source makes available less costly. It does mean, however, that for the Danes, whom Tverberg uses as her model, the fact that importing energy (Denmark produces excess energy) costs more than exporting it results in their having excess production for which they don't get compensated. That excess thus boosts artificially the cost of producing the energy because it's effort, used resources, that's not compensated and/or not compensated at the same rates as is the energy actually used domestically.
  
  The reason I mention this is because energy producers are natural monopolists and treated/regulated as such. In other words, because they are monopolists, governments constrain their profitability (profits). In so doing, governments typically to stated profit levels and thus must fill the gap between what producers actually earns and what is deemed a "just" profit level/rate given that the producer has a monopoly.
  
  Obviously, the Danes face two key challenges that cause their cost of energy to be higher than it otherwise might be. They have a policy design problem, not a cost of energy problem, as a result of the monopoly structure of the energy market; however, it's well understood that altering that structure is not the answer because of the astronomically high infrastructure costs of energy production.
  
  The Danes also face a market problem in that they can't sell their excess energy at high enough prices. We have a similar dilemma in the U.S. with shale oil producers. Their business if profitably viable when oil prices are high, but when oil prices fall, they aren't or are less so.
  
  In any case, Denmark is on the way to eliminating its energy subsidies. Clearly, then, they've found a workable solution for at least some of their dilemma.

Those are just some preliminary thoughts that crossed my mind upon reading the first few paragraphs of the essay. When I finish reading the document, I'll have a final opinion(s), one which may or may not concur with my initial thoughts, on it


Note:

1. In the energy industry and discussions about it and its products, energy production, distribution and transmission are distinct products. Producers need not be distributors, transmitters may or may not also be distributors, and so on. Accordingly, the term "producer" refers only to generation of energy.

 

[usmbguest5318]

An exceedingly long read here but absolutely fatal to advocates of wind and solar. This shit is even far more expensive than I thought!!! Has a future but will remain a fringe energy source like Ive been saying for 20 years.

Article goes deeply into the mega-costs of "intermittent" renewables........something I knew little about before reading this article. Didn't know almost all renewable energy is intermittent. Also.....everything you see in here from the climate crusaders on pricing does not include any mention of projections on future increase in subsidies as the pricing increases ( due to staggering costs of building transmission lines for example )

Renewable energy is a scam and always has been as scam...........and most interesting is from this article, the reduction of CO2 has been vastly overstated by advocates of renewables!!


There may be some cases where intermittent renewables are helpful additions without buffering (especially when the current fuel is oil, and wind or solar can help reduce fuel usage), but there are likely to be many other instances where the costs involved greatly exceed the benefits gained.

If we look at recently published information about how much intermittent electricity is being added to the electric grid, the amounts are surprisingly small. Overall, worldwide, the amount of electricity generated by a combination of wind and solar (nearly all of it intermittent) was 5.2% in 2016. On an area by area basis, the percentages of wind and solar are as shown in Figure 1.




















http://www.theenergycollective.com/gail-tverberg/2409208/researchers-underestimating-cost-wind-solar

Why am I not surprised. When Solyndra, the jewel of Obama's renewable energy dream went belly up, losing 1/2 billion dollars of OUR money, you knew that liberals were getting rich on our taxes, while Obama put more in poverty. And the stupid ass liberals went Obaaaaahmaah, Obaaaahmaah, like the good little eichmen that they are. The problem with the Global Warming Religious Zelots, is that you can give them proof that they are being deceived, yet they wont deny their leaders.

OT:
Jesus H. Christ! The OP-er referenced a substantive essay rather than a frigging political editorial, the latter being mostly what people refer to on here, and the political drivel above is all you have to say about it? Dude, if you don't have thoughtfully insightful or topically constructive remarks that either expound on the substance of Tverberg's analysis or that refute it on some meritorious basis -- methodological, inferential, etc., something of note -- why even bother to comment? There are on USMB plenty of "peanut gallery" grade comments on topics of the sort you've shared above. Your echoing them doesn't add anything to this discussion.

 

[danielpalos]

An exceedingly long read here but absolutely fatal to advocates of wind and solar. This shit is even far more expensive than I thought!!! Has a future but will remain a fringe energy source like Ive been saying for 20 years.

Article goes deeply into the mega-costs of "intermittent" renewables........something I knew little about before reading this article. Didn't know almost all renewable energy is intermittent. Also.....everything you see in here from the climate crusaders on pricing does not include any mention of projections on future increase in subsidies as the pricing increases ( due to staggering costs of building transmission lines for example )

Renewable energy is a scam and always has been as scam...........and most interesting is from this article, the reduction of CO2 has been vastly overstated by advocates of renewables!!


There may be some cases where intermittent renewables are helpful additions without buffering (especially when the current fuel is oil, and wind or solar can help reduce fuel usage), but there are likely to be many other instances where the costs involved greatly exceed the benefits gained.

If we look at recently published information about how much intermittent electricity is being added to the electric grid, the amounts are surprisingly small. Overall, worldwide, the amount of electricity generated by a combination of wind and solar (nearly all of it intermittent) was 5.2% in 2016. On an area by area basis, the percentages of wind and solar are as shown in Figure 1.




















http://www.theenergycollective.com/gail-tverberg/2409208/researchers-underestimating-cost-wind-solar

Advances in technologies will make this a moot point. There is already, solar windows technologies that can upgrade current windows on any building or skyscraper.

 

[Manonthestreet]

Sad we need a study to State the obvious..........EU " "free" energy costs double and triple utility bills.....process has begun inMN......

 

[Old Rocks]

Odd that you have to lie to protect your luddite ideology. The cost of renewables is dropping every year, in contrast to the cost of fossil fuels. We have just started to store energy on a grid scale, and the coming decade will see a major impact on the cost energy by this technology. Nobody has a distributed grid yet, and only a few companies are realizing that the installation of solar by homeowners is actually another source of generation that can make the grid more robust. Rather than increasing the cost of energy, the renewables will lower that cost. Lower the dollar amount per unit of electricity, and lower the human cost from black lung, and air and water pollution from the mining.

 

[Mikeoxenormous]

Odd that you have to lie to protect your luddite ideology. The cost of renewables is dropping every year, in contrast to the cost of fossil fuels. We have just started to store energy on a grid scale, and the coming decade will see a major impact on the cost energy by this technology. Nobody has a distributed grid yet, and only a few companies are realizing that the installation of solar by homeowners is actually another source of generation that can make the grid more robust. Rather than increasing the cost of energy, the renewables will lower that cost. Lower the dollar amount per unit of electricity, and lower the human cost from black lung, and air and water pollution from the mining.

Notice how the tard says something, but doesn't put up any proof to make his point. Liberals are such sociopaths. When you understand sociopathic behavior, you know why liberals do what they do. Even when the OP has shown proof of the bullshit of renewable energy and how much is costs and destructive to the environment, the liberals still want to protect their liberal elites special interest uber rich....
How to spot a sociopath - 10 red flags that could save you from being swept under the influence of a charismatic nut job

#5) Sociopaths seek to dominate others and "win" at all costs. They hate to lose any argument or fight and will viciously defend their web of lies, even to the point of logical absurdity.

#10) Sociopaths are delusional and literally believe that what they say becomes truth merely because they say it!

 

[danielpalos]

Sad we need a study to State the obvious..........EU " "free" energy costs double and triple utility bills.....process has begun inMN......

Solar energy has plunged in price—where does it go from here?

 

[Mikeoxenormous]

Sad we need a study to State the obvious..........EU " "free" energy costs double and triple utility bills.....process has begun inMN......

Solar energy has plunged in price—where does it go from here?

Report: Solar Energy Subsidies Cost $39 Billion Per Year

Despite billions spent in investments over decades, solar energy will only make up 0.6 percent of total electricity generation in the United States, according to a report released by the Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA).

"In spite of government’s best efforts to encourage innovation by solar energy companies and encourage Americans to rely more heavily on solar electricity, solar power continues to be a losing proposition," the report said. "American taxpayers spent an average of $39 billion a year over the past 5 years financing grants, subsidizing tax credits, guaranteeing loans, bailing out failed solar energy boondoggles and otherwise underwriting every idea under the sun to make solar energy cheaper and more popular. But none of it has worked."

 

[SSDD]

Wait till the disposal cost of all that junk comes home to roost...it is going to make the cost of putting it in place look like nickels and dimes.

 

[Manonthestreet]

Sad we need a study to State the obvious..........EU " "free" energy costs double and triple utility bills.....process has begun inMN......

Solar energy has plunged in price—where does it go from here?

Right..........yet energy costs In. Eu still result in poverty and business with energy intensive production come to the US......

 

[danielpalos]

Sad we need a study to State the obvious..........EU " "free" energy costs double and triple utility bills.....process has begun inMN......

Solar energy has plunged in price—where does it go from here?

Right..........yet energy costs In. Eu still result in poverty and business with energy intensive production come to the US......

Improving technologies means more solar energy will be available. Large buildings could cover their energy costs.

 

[skookerasbil]

Sad we need a study to State the obvious..........EU " "free" energy costs double and triple utility bills.....process has begun inMN......

Solar energy has plunged in price—where does it go from here?

Right..........yet energy costs In. Eu still result in poverty and business with energy intensive production come to the US......

Improving technologies means more solar energy will be available. Large buildings could cover their energy costs.

Perhaps just a smidge s0n...........decades from now, solar will still be decidedly fringe..........well, at least according to Obama's 2016 EIA Report from last year.

But you can continue to hang in bubble land s0n..........God bless.

 

[IanC]

Odd that you have to lie to protect your luddite ideology. The cost of renewables is dropping every year, in contrast to the cost of fossil fuels. We have just started to store energy on a grid scale, and the coming decade will see a major impact on the cost energy by this technology. Nobody has a distributed grid yet, and only a few companies are realizing that the installation of solar by homeowners is actually another source of generation that can make the grid more robust. Rather than increasing the cost of energy, the renewables will lower that cost. Lower the dollar amount per unit of electricity, and lower the human cost from black lung, and air and water pollution from the mining.

Notice how the tard says something, but doesn't put up any proof to make his point. Liberals are such sociopaths. When you understand sociopathic behavior, you know why liberals do what they do. Even when the OP has shown proof of the bullshit of renewable energy and how much is costs and destructive to the environment, the liberals still want to protect their liberal elites special interest uber rich....
How to spot a sociopath - 10 red flags that could save you from being swept under the influence of a charismatic nut job

#5) Sociopaths seek to dominate others and "win" at all costs. They hate to lose any argument or fight and will viciously defend their web of lies, even to the point of logical absurdity.

#10) Sociopaths are delusional and literally believe that what they say becomes truth merely because they say it!

Old Rocks isn't a sociopath, he's just gullible.

He also has a disability. He is unable to comprehend or remember any evidence that disagrees with what he thinks.

His brain is like an M&M. Hard and impervious on the outside, soft and mushy on the inside.

 

[polarbear]

Odd that you have to lie to protect your luddite ideology. The cost of renewables is dropping every year, in contrast to the cost of fossil fuels. We have just started to store energy on a grid scale, and the coming decade will see a major impact on the cost energy by this technology. Nobody has a distributed grid yet, and only a few companies are realizing that the installation of solar by homeowners is actually another source of generation that can make the grid more robust. Rather than increasing the cost of energy, the renewables will lower that cost. Lower the dollar amount per unit of electricity, and lower the human cost from black lung, and air and water pollution from the mining.

And while you are tip toeing in the tulips 340 workers at the Tillsonburg Siemens wind turbine plant are opening their severance packages:

Ontario – where electricity prices have basically doubled over the last decade, and where the energy file has become hugely political heading into next year’s election – had started the process to contract for an additional 600 megawatts of wind energy, requiring construction of about a dozen new wind farms.
Siemens closes wind turbine plant in Tillsonburg — 340 green energy jobs gone
In 2010, four plants to make parts for wind and energy farms were set up under the Samsung deal between the company and the province to generate power for Ontario and create manufacturing jobs in green energy.
The four plants were to create about 900 jobs.
In exchange, Ontario agreed to buy heavily subsidized power from Samsung wind and solar projects and guarantee the company space on the province’s crowded electricity transmission grid.
Reevely: Windmill plant closes, as Ontario's Green Energy Act dies a painful, costly death
We have several hundred people trained in the blade-making business suddenly looking for work; maybe they’ll go on to bigger things. Though the Tillsonburg plant didn’t lose out to other Ontario blade factories that sprung up and learned to out compete it — it’s just closing, because making blades in Ontario only made sense when the government insisted on it and backed that demand with cash.
We have the three other factories born of the Green Energy Act, at least for now. The windmill-tower factory in Windsor is already down to one shift a day from three and is abruptly losing a major strategic partner. But it persists.
Not nothing. Not a lot to show for the billions of dollars we’ve spent.
Hatfield said the Liberal government has caused the current problems by “giving away the farm” in the original deal with Samsung,
“Samsung had no history in renewable energy before they came to Ontario. They came only for the subsidies, and when the subsidies dry up, they’ll disappear as quick as they landed,” said Adams, an independent energy and environmental adviser and researcher.

 

[skookerasbil]

The climate crusaders are fuzzy about how stuff works.......its a connect the dots problem with these people, thus the level of gullible.

This shit always sounds brilliant when the pols speak of clean energy........but in future years, the same idiots are not going to be in office anymore and the dickhead gullible voters get the bill. Why do you think Germany is in the midst of building 20 new coal fired plants? Because several years ago, the voters started opening up their electric bills following a renewables boom........they were fucking pissed. The pols NEVER explain the costs to the consumer for this bs energy source.......never explain how its going to get paid for .......eventually though, they find out. That's why you see record imports of US coal into Germany right now. The government doesn't want to get their asses booted out of office...............the climate crusaders think the voting public are the Stoopid's..........but as we found out with the Trump election, when they are getting fucked by the economics, they ALWAYS respond by saying "FUCK YOU!!". Happens every time. The climate k00ks don't get that..............for Christsakes, they post in here that elections will be decided by the issue of climate change..........that's some serious fuckedupedness thinking.

 

[80zephyr]

An exceedingly long read here but absolutely fatal to advocates of wind and solar. This shit is even far more expensive than I thought!!! Has a future but will remain a fringe energy source like Ive been saying for 20 years.

Article goes deeply into the mega-costs of "intermittent" renewables........something I knew little about before reading this article. Didn't know almost all renewable energy is intermittent. Also.....everything you see in here from the climate crusaders on pricing does not include any mention of projections on future increase in subsidies as the pricing increases ( due to staggering costs of building transmission lines for example )

Renewable energy is a scam and always has been as scam...........and most interesting is from this article, the reduction of CO2 has been vastly overstated by advocates of renewables!!


There may be some cases where intermittent renewables are helpful additions without buffering (especially when the current fuel is oil, and wind or solar can help reduce fuel usage), but there are likely to be many other instances where the costs involved greatly exceed the benefits gained.

If we look at recently published information about how much intermittent electricity is being added to the electric grid, the amounts are surprisingly small. Overall, worldwide, the amount of electricity generated by a combination of wind and solar (nearly all of it intermittent) was 5.2% in 2016. On an area by area basis, the percentages of wind and solar are as shown in Figure 1.




















http://www.theenergycollective.com/gail-tverberg/2409208/researchers-underestimating-cost-wind-solar

Advances in technologies will make this a moot point. There is already, solar windows technologies that can upgrade current windows on any building or skyscraper.

I graduated college with a degree in architectural design in 1976. At that time solar energy was the next "big thing". Easy peasy.

That was 41 years ago.

Mark

 

[Mikeoxenormous]

An exceedingly long read here but absolutely fatal to advocates of wind and solar. This shit is even far more expensive than I thought!!! Has a future but will remain a fringe energy source like Ive been saying for 20 years.

Article goes deeply into the mega-costs of "intermittent" renewables........something I knew little about before reading this article. Didn't know almost all renewable energy is intermittent. Also.....everything you see in here from the climate crusaders on pricing does not include any mention of projections on future increase in subsidies as the pricing increases ( due to staggering costs of building transmission lines for example )

Renewable energy is a scam and always has been as scam...........and most interesting is from this article, the reduction of CO2 has been vastly overstated by advocates of renewables!!


There may be some cases where intermittent renewables are helpful additions without buffering (especially when the current fuel is oil, and wind or solar can help reduce fuel usage), but there are likely to be many other instances where the costs involved greatly exceed the benefits gained.

If we look at recently published information about how much intermittent electricity is being added to the electric grid, the amounts are surprisingly small. Overall, worldwide, the amount of electricity generated by a combination of wind and solar (nearly all of it intermittent) was 5.2% in 2016. On an area by area basis, the percentages of wind and solar are as shown in Figure 1.




















http://www.theenergycollective.com/gail-tverberg/2409208/researchers-underestimating-cost-wind-solar

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UK plans to ban sale of new petrol and diesel cars by 2040

His promise to ban other cars - including hybrid vehicles - shifts the government further from its existing position, which was an "ambition" for all cars to be zero-emission by 2040.

Burn that 1 gallon at a fossil fuel plant and you produce enough electricity to do 1/3 widget of work. Use that electricity in an electric car and it is able to use, at best, 62% (according to enthusiastic advocates of the electric car, mind you) of that 1/3. That means 21% efficiency on its best day.

Do Electric Cars Really Reduce Dependence on Fossil Fuels?
politicaloutcast.com/do-electric-cars-really-reduce-dependence-on-fossil-fuels/

The stupidity of the left knows, no bounds. They believe that the world is burning up, yet today in the "Dog Days of Summer" (July 26th, 2017) the temperature outside was 64 degrees F. So now the FORCED selection of only driving all electric cars will be mandatory on the people of England, and when the Brits have to burn more CO2 producing coal fired electricity, or use solar and wind, which then there wont be enough electricity, will the Brits wake up and remove such idiot politicians from office? The only reason why Wind and Solar is getting close to being cheaper than fossil fuels is the Cap and Tax that Obama put on CO2 producing products. Without those extreme taxes on the poor and middle class, then Wind and Solar would be way more expensive. Oh you liberals forgot about that tax Obama promised you would pay, here is video of your messiah putting the screws to you.

 

[deanrd]

Funny, they said the same thing about automobiles.