Don’t Follow Net-Zero Lemmings Over the Energy Cliff
Seventeen states – including Virginia – tie their vehicle emission standards and electric vehicle sale mandates to California, the most climate-centric state in the Union. Unless current laws change, by 2035 all their new cars, pickups and SUVs must be electric (or hydrogen-powered).
In further obeisance to California, most of these states also require that their utility companies generate 100% of their electricity from “renewable sources” by 2045 or 2050. They and the federal government are also mandating that electric models replace gas-fueled furnaces, water heaters, driers, stoves and ovens within a decade or less.
This means electricity demand will double in the very near future – at the same time that reliable, affordable fossil-fuel (and nuclear and hydroelectric) electricity generation plummets. Charging massive batteries to ensure power on windless, sunless days would double demand again.
Home, hospital, school and business lighting, heating, cooling, cooking and computing costs will likely double or triple, hitting poor and minority families hardest. Blackouts will become commonplace.
No wonder citizens in Germany, Luxembourg and other European countries are revolting against net zero laws, forcing politicians to delay or terminate their green dictates.
And yet Democrats in Virginia and elsewhere have refused to budge. They’re so convinced that climate cataclysms are imminent – and government mandates will magically usher in a renewable energy era – that they are willing to compel families and businesses to follow them and other virtue-signaling lemmings off the net-zero cliff.
That’s why – even with attention now focused on Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan and other global hot spots – voters also need to think long and hard about looming US energy cataclysms.
Democrats, some Republicans, and their media and environmentalist allies are determined to sweep vitally important energy realities under the rug. Voters mustn’t that happen.
First and foremost, not one village on Earth – much less a city or state – has shown that wind and solar power backed up by grid-scale batteries can enable them to function normally ... or merely survive ... for even a week, winter or summer. And yet President Biden and many others want to impose a “green energy transformation” on the entire United States.
Such a transformation would require literally millions of wind turbines, billions of solar panels, and tens of thousands of miles of new transmission lines. Billions of Tesla-EV-equivalent battery modules would be needed to stabilize increasingly large and complex electricity grids ... and back up sporadic, weather-dependent electricity ... to prevent widespread blackouts.
Building this equipment would involve billions of tons of steel, aluminum, copper, cobalt, lithium, concrete, plastics and other materials; hundreds of billions of tons of ore and overburden from thousands of mines; fossil fuels for mining, processing and manufacturing; and unprecedented greenhouse gas emissions, toxic air, water and ground pollution, and wildlife habitat destruction.
Installing all that equipment would impact thousands of square miles of habitats, scenic areas and croplands – decimating wildlife all across rural America – to serve major urban areas that have the votes to impose their views, but not the room or desire to have those impacts in their own backyards. Disposing of worn out and broken solar panels and wind turbine blades would require hundreds of huge landfills, also in rural America’s backyards.
The costs would be astronomical. Net Zero Reality Coalition experts have calculated that grid-balancing and backup batteries alone would cost up to $290-trillion, depending on which capital cost, hourly or daily electricity generation data and other factors are employed.
The wind industry loves to say such-and-such wind or solar project has the “capacity” to power 100,000 homes. That may be true – when the wind is blowing or sun is shining at optimal levels. However, that rarely happens. On an annual basis, those unreliable systems would likely generate electricity 20-40% of the year, in short intervals, at totally unpredictable times.
Since the Biden Administration and environmentalists steadfastly oppose mining in the USA, most resource extraction will be done overseas. The raw materials will mostly come from or through China, which often employs slave and child labor, zero to minimal environmental standards, subpar wage and workplace safety standards, and minerals as a political weapon.
That means wind, solar and battery power is actually the antithesis of clean, green, renewable, sustainable and ethical. All the dirty, evil, unsustainable activities just take place in faraway places, where they can be ignored; where they needn’t be factored into slick product and campaign ads.
An all-electric economy also requires that home, neighborhood, local, state and national transmission systems be significantly upgraded to handle the massive additional electric loads. That’s more trillions of dollars, further increasing the cost of electricity and every product and service.
Personal needs and choices will disappear. You will be told what cars you can buy and how far you can drive them; how big your home can be, and how warm or cool you can keep it; how often and how far you can travel on vacation; even what foods you can eat.
Where’s the beef? Not on the menu. And just imagine being in your EV, in a massive traffic jam, during a blizzard or hurricane evacuation. But as California goes, so will you. Your legislators demand it.
Delving into specifics: President Biden wants 30,000 megawatts of offshore wind electricity by 2030. That would require 2,500 gigantic 12-MW wind turbines. But even if the wind is blowing optimally, their output would barely meet New York State’s peak summertime electricity needs.
Equally crazy, New York’s plan for 24,000 megawatt-hours of battery storage would provide backup for barely 45 minutes on a sweltering windless day. And even that minuscule storage would require 300,000 Tesla 80-kilowatt-hour battery modules.
The 2020 Virginia Clean Economy Act requires that utilities have 3,100 megawatt-hours of electricity storage. If those are to be 19-MWh Tesla Megapack battery modules, costing $10-million apiece, Virginia taxpayers and ratepayers would have to lay out $1.6 billion. For that they’d get one-half-hour of statewide windless/sunless day backup!
Ask your elected officials how many offshore turbines would be needed to power your state – or the entire USA. How many onshore turbines with a nameplate capacity of perhaps 6 MW. How many solar panels sprawling across vast scenic areas, croplands and wildlife habitats – in sunny Arizona or frosty Wisconsin. How many battery modules for a full week of backup storage.
Demand to know costs – and how much mining, processing, manufacturing, toxic pollution, carbon dioxide emissions, child labor, and habitat destruction would go into making all that equipment.
Watch them bob and weave, run for cover, or have the police remove you for asking such impertinent questions.
Mandates for electric vehicles, wind and solar power, and a magical transition to a fossil-fuel-free energy utopia are critical issues this year and in 2024. Ponder them carefully before you head to the polls.
Your vote – and whether you encourage your friends to vote – will determine whether we end this insanity or must live with the iron fists of increasingly oppressive climate authoritarians.
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Top Wind Firm Profits Tumble 98% in New Blow to alternative Energy
Xinjiang Goldwind Science & Technology Co., the largest wind-turbine maker, said third-quarter profit tumbled in another blow to a renewables sector reeling from the impact of lower prices even as demand jumps.
The producer’s net income fell 98% to 9.4 million yuan ($1.29 million) in the three months ended Sept. 30 from a year earlier, the company said Thursday in a statement. Sales volumes in the first nine months were 8.9 gigawatts, up more than a quarter on the same period in 2022. Goldwind’s shares fell as much as 5% intraday in Shenzhen on Friday.
Asia’s largest economy is accelerating deployment of renewable energy as it works to curb emissions and meet rising electricity demand. Though installations are rising, competition is intensifying among China’s wind turbine producers and pushing prices lower.
The sharp quarterly profit drop is due to higher selling expenses and research-and-development costs, Citigroup analyst Pierre Lau wrote in a note. Wind developers are facing higher project costs since all national subsidies expired in 2021 and regional governments require more local-economy contributions, Bloomberg NEF analyst Xiangyu Chen wrote last month.
Clean energy technology manufacturers globally are struggling with rising costs and delays to some projects. Siemens Energy AG plunged more than a third Thursday after confirming it is in talks with the German government about state guarantees as it grapples with weakness in its wind-turbine unit.
Vattenfall AB and Iberdrola SA have already scrapped some developments this year, and the bleak outlook threatens to hamper efforts by Goldwind and other Chinese turbine producers to expand outside their home market.
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Chasing idiocy: how subsidies power Australia's energy price hikes
If we looked at the picture for Australia in the mid-90s, the electricity industry was massively overstaffed and the gas industry was dissipating the wealth that Exxon had discovered in Bass Strait.
In the case of electricity, Victoria led the way, and one simple figure illustrates the benefits brought about by privatisation and the introduction of competition. Generation Victoria was the monopoly supplier. Prior to reforms, which were ironically initiated by socialist Premier Joan Kirner, it employed 25,000 people; by the early 2000s, the numbers employed, including consultants and contractors, were under 3,000. At the same time the output, in terms of the power stations’ availabilities to run, had lifted from somewhere in the mid-70 per cent range to the mid-90s.
So, we had over 20,000 surplus personnel who only gummed up the work. Similar savings can be found in the distribution and transmission businesses, albeit to a lesser degree.
Australia was largely traversing the path that had been trailblazed by Margaret Thatcher’s administration in the UK and, less systematically in the US, where The Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland network (PJM) showed the way in which independent generator businesses could compete while cooperating thereby bringing about lower prices with considerable incentives to invest where investment would be profitable.
Within six or seven years of initiating the reforms, Australia had achieved what was probably the lowest electricity prices in the world and an electricity system, which was no longer plagued with downtime, strikes, and blackouts. We saw new investment responding to commercial, not political, incentives.
This was done as a result of profits-oriented businesses, in retail as well as generation – not all of them privately owned – competing for business within a known framework of rules. These as the very conditions under which capitalism generally has prevailed and brought the wealth of nations we enjoy today.
But the situation in the energy industry was always precarious. Even while the reforms were taking place, Victorian Treasurer Alan Stockdale felt obliged to introduce regulatory arrangements for pricing and for ombudsman arrangements that went far beyond those seen in other industries.
At the start of the 21st Century, and for the next few years, electricity prices (and to a lesser degree gas, having fallen immediately after the reforms), were increasing more or less in line with inflation.
But the germs of the present disaster were already starting to infect the industry – and the economy as a whole.
Spurred on by claims that carbon dioxide emissions were causing global warming, and a fantasy that wind and solar energy would soon become cheaper than ‘dinosaur’ coal and gas and supposedly inherently dangerous nuclear, the first tentative steps were taken to favour renewable industries. Amusingly, we see agencies like CSIRO and others claiming even more stridently that wind and solar is cheaper and – often within the same sentence – adding that they therefore need to continue receiving the subsidies they enjoy.
In response to climate scares and skilful lobbying, John Howard introduced requirements for ‘2 per cent of additional energy’ to be supplied by wind and solar. The method of arranging, for this was through the Mandatory Renewable Energy Target (MRET) whereby energy certificates, which provided a subsidy to wind and solar, equivalent in those days to about $30 per MWh (providing a 70 per cent premium on the commercial market price).
John Howard has since said that this 2 per cent additional energy policy was his greatest political error. He sought to cap the level of support and appointed an inquiry, chaired by former Senator Tamblyn, to advise on this. As is often the case, the inquiry was captured by the bureaucrats and recommended the expansion of the scheme from what had been quantified at 9,500 GWh to 16,000 GWh. To his credit, Howard rejected this but was quickly replaced by Australia’s new economic and political saviour, Kevin Rudd.
Under Rudd/Gillard, the MRET scheme and its roof-top sister scheme went into break-neck expansion until the Abbott victory in 2013. Abbott wanted to wind back the scheme but, fearing radical advice and conscious of political opposition to this, appointed the sensible Dick Warburton to head the inquiry, and the best he felt he could do was to cap the scheme.
So the subsidies have continued. They have transformed what was a supply comprising 85 per cent coal 10 per cent hydro and 5 per cent gas to the present output of 60 per cent coal 25 per cent solar/wind and 15 per cent hydro and gas. The present government seeks to eliminate coal altogether and, ostensibly at least, the Opposition is not far behind.
In terms of subsidies, the PC has put their effect as follows
In annualised dollar terms, the energy subsidies to renewables, the flip side of which is a tax-type penalty on fossil fuels come to over $9,800 (million):
LRET SRES ACCUs $3,980
RERT, FCAS and system security $400
Clean Energy Regulator $750
Expansion of transmission $510
CEFC $1,333
ARENA $100
Snowy 2 $1,333
State schemes $1,410
The subsidies do far more damage than a simple transfer of money from one party to another. Because wind is subsidised (and is favoured by the market operator’s dispatch algorithm that gives it preferred access), it can bid into the market at anything above negative $40-50 per MWh. This not only displaces coal but forces up its costs since the generators are capital-intensive and designed to operate for much of the day but are being forced to fill in when the wind/sun is not producing.
As a result, we see prices forced down as the coal generators meet the market pressures from wind and solar that will seek to run at anything over its (subsidised) break-even of about $50 per MWh. Prices then shoot up when those distorted market pressures add costs (by forcing the capital-intensive coal plant to operate part-time) and at the same time squeeze prices. That process forces a facility to close once a new lick of new capital is required to supply – not at the steady rate of the original design – but as a filler for when lack of wind and sun prevent intermittent renewables from generating. The pattern can be observed in prices depicted below.
This year’s closure of Liddell brought what the Australian Financial Review called a revelation, ‘Had Liddell’s capacity still been available, prices would have been lower.’ Chanticleer noted, that the average realised wholesale price increased 32 per cent in NSW, 27 per cent in Victoria, 100 per cent in SA and 14 per cent in Queensland.
The pressures on electricity have been increased by regulatory constraints on new developments and tax increases (called royalty increases) on coal and gas. For gas, Australia now has shortages due to regulatory restrictions that largely outlaw developments in all eastern states other than Queensland.
The outcome has seen Australia being transformed from its former position of enjoying very low-cost energy supply. Australian electricity prices are now twice those of China, Russia and Vietnam and much dearer than other nations following us down the climate energy wormhole, like Canada, the US, and Korea.
One solution according to our politicians and those who advise them is to re-nationalise the industry and double up on the subsidies to renewables.
Former Premier Andrews set renationalisation in train for Victoria. Fortunately, his government would be unable to raise sufficient funds to implement this.
The latest subsidy expansion is the Safeguard Mechanism but the Prime Minister has foreshadowed a new array of subsidies and regulatory impediments. And hydrogen is a popular elixir to fix the system but one that cannot conceivably work if only because it takes more energy to produce than if provides.
The further we go along this path of replacing coal with intermittent solar and wind supplies, the more expensive the firming operation becomes. With a 100 per cent renewables supply and no transmission constraints, Global Roam has put the firming costs as the equivalent of 25 Snowy 2’s or 70,000 Hornsdale batteries which would cost some $6 trillion and, even if amortised over a 15-year period would require one-third of annual GDP – and that is just for the batteries. Even larger costs are estimated by others like Francis Menton, who estimates that just to keep the lights on would require a backup of 25 days supply with 100 per cent wind supply. Pumped hydro might have a firming role alongside batteries but it cannot be a major one given Australia’s limited river flows.
One solution proposed by the Opposition is to adopt nuclear but this – at the present time – is nowhere near as economical for Australia as coal. It is even less so in the way Peter Dutton expressed it – as an adjunct and firming mechanism for renewables, a role that nuclear (like coal), with its high fixed costs, is intrinsically ill-placed to perform.
Of course, the real solution is that adopted by China, India, and others
But for the time being Prime Minister Albanese, reeling from the Voice debate, is preparing for a redoubled support for renewable energy. In doing so he is tacitly supported by the finance industry that is cowering from the ‘global boiling’ incandescents and refusing to finance energy sources other than those renewables requiring government subsidies. We therefore, at the very least, face a considerable increase in national misery before sensible energy economic policies are restored.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/10/chasing-idiocy-how-subsidies-power-our-energy-price-hikes/
************************************Electric-vehicle shares look toppy as car buyer interest wanes
The electric-vehicle boom that spawned multibillion dollar startups overnight and pushed Tesla's value into the stratosphere is starting to flounder just a few years after it began.
A key theme from this earnings season is the waning demand for electric cars. First was Tesla's grim earnings report last week, that was followed by dour commentary from General Motors, Mercedes-Benz, Honda and car-rental company Hertz.
The shift has been sobering for investors, as the valuations of most EV stocks assume a rapid industry expansion. Should that fail to materialise, share prices will likely unwind and many startups won't be able to rely on the capital markets to fund their unprofitable ventures.
"People were always too aggressive on EV adoption," said Craig Irwin, analyst at Roth Capital Partners. "What we have now is a market adjustment, a recalibration back to reality."
While Tesla chief executive officer Elon Musk placed the blame on high interest rates, others pointed to demand. GM said it was rethinking goals as EV sales were slower than anticipated, and Honda shelved plans to develop affordable EVs with GM. Mercedes called the EV price war "brutal" and unsustainable, and Hertz said it will slow the pace of buying these cars due to high repair costs.
At the same time, Wall Street analysts downgraded EV-exposed companies such as lithium suppliers and charging station operators.
"EVs had a grace period of initial demand enthusiasm, but that appears to be over," said Nicholas Colas, co-founder of DataTrek Research.
The warning signs appeared early this year as Tesla started aggressively cutting prices in an effort to shore up demand. That sparked a price war as other EV-makers followed, eating into profitability for some carmakers and pushing up already steep losses for others.
But demand stayed weak despite the lower prices, leading some to conclude that the pool of "first-adopter" consumers may have been tapped. Then there are other hurdles like high interest rates and expensive car loans, still inconsistent charging networks and the relatively fewer electric models available.
Even the global political push for cleaner transportation options isn't making a difference.
"Consumers have the final word on where pricing has to go," Mr Colas said. "If demand is already faltering, then margins are going to be tight from here on."
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My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Jim Hansen and his twin
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