Suppose ten workers are employed to fulfil a continuous contractual obligation one of whom goes on irregular walkabouts – to risk using a politically incorrect term. That is fine because among the nine reliable workers there are those who are ever ready to fill in. Suppose two or even three workers become prone to downing tools. Hmm? This remains survivable if among the remaining seven reliable workers there are always a few able and willing to pitch in and provide sufficient cover. But what happens if half or more workers become unreliable? There’s the rub. That is when the rubber hits the road or, more aptly, when the proverbial hits the fan.
My thinly disguised metaphor contains all you need to know to understand the consequences of progressively replacing reliable dispatchable power with unreliable intermittent power. It is not complicated. It can be made terribly complicated. Have a look at AEMO’s Integrated System Plan or at any plan produced around the world to explain how renewables can take over power generation. They are bamboozling. They have to be to fool not only the recipients of the plans but also the planners themselves.
I defy anyone to believe that AEMO’s CEO Daniel Westerman and his colleagues in the other climate regulatory agencies are not deadly serious in their delusional beliefs. No, they have imbibed the renewables Kool-Aid. Yet, the weather and the rotating of the planet refuse to play ball. It must be disconcerting in the event they occasionally suffer transitory moments of clarity.
Wind droughts, nights, and heavily clouded days are the hitches. And, to boot, they regularly come together and bring about the need for a backup dispatchable system of equal generating capacity to the renewable power system. To wit, when all ten workers go walkabout at the same time you require another ten-workers worth at the instant to fill the breach. Developing a plan to confound this reality is not easy. You need lots of complex computing, assumptions, numbers, spreadsheets and diagrams, footnotes and appendices. All mixed together with a starry-eyed aspiration. And, still, despite all of this, when the wind and sun refuse to oblige not a mere watt comes out the other side. While demand remains the same. What a shame. Nor all their piety nor complicated modelling can cancel mother nature. Quite simply, the more wind and solar power penetrate the system, the more rationing and blackouts will inevitably ensue. Meanwhile in Azerbaijan…
HOW we get to the desired destination is IRRELEVANT. All that matters is we get there.
Why?
Let’s keep this concise: It is easier to destroy rather then create. Pulling up the third world will be time-consuming and difficult. Pulling down the evil WEST is the other (more rewarding, less personally risky) option.
Besides, these first-worlders must suffer for their perceived past sins. Gaia is the prostitute who will help achieve that destruction.
NONE of this is about saving ‘da planet.’
Gerbil worming or whatever it’s called now, is merely the vehicle for graft, psychopathy, and – for some genuine believers – an opportunity to preen their self-esteem.
Feelings triumph over facts.
We can (justly) make fun of that, or we can USE IT to rearrange the dominant narrative.
We need to choose something that actually WORKS (and measure it), rather than what we think SHOULD work.
‘Should’ gets us poverty.
Spot on common sense. These boffins love to baffle brains with you know what.
BTW Peter your ‘borrowing’ from Omar jumped at me.
A good article on the myth of batteries.
The Home-Based Battery Storage Fantasy (24 Nov)
The numbers are beyond ridiculous. But the author doesn’t even go to the next step, which is to point out that the battery lasts at best 10 years, and loses half or more of its capacity in that time.
So you (a) have to have even more batteries to account from the declining performance and then (b) you have to replace all the batteries in only ten years. Kaching! That’s another $3 trillion please. And again again in only ten more years.
It was never about saving the planet, it was always about destruction of the West
For those of a socialist bent it is about owning and co
I would also offer that for those of a political socialist/Marxist persuasion the climate change/ renewable energy boondoggle offered the opportunity of gaining control over the electricity systems in Western governments . This conveniently parallels the one-world power-seekers intentions including Club of Rome. WEF, UN et al.
And when you add the known grifters of the world who see it as the ultimate scam for siphoning off subsidies, grants and taxpayers money, it gains enormous traction.
All the above have been complemented by laptop academics and grant seekers (useful idiots) and company start-ups that have been pulled into the exciting whirlpool of working on deadlines to meet the confected net zero target of “saving the planet”.
This has all been sanctioned by unquestioning voters whilst promoted by the government funded ALPBC and MSM media who are partial to RE advertising. As for the unions and the super fund investment in this big Ponzi scheme we are now being told it is too big to fail or to pull out. But it will fail, we all know this, just a matter of when. Just one big money bath swirling around and around and taking our economy, our electricity grid and our environment down the plug hole with it.
I would also offer that for those of a political socialist/Marxist persuasion the climate change/ renewable energy boondoggle offered the opportunity of gaining control over the electricity systems in Western governments . This conveniently parallels the one-world power-seekers intentions including Club of Rome. WEF, UN et al.
And when you add the known grifters of the world who see it as the ultimate scam for siphoning off subsidies, grants and taxpayers money, it gains enormous traction.
All the above have been complemented by laptop academics and grant seekers (useful idiots) and company start-ups that have been pulled into the exciting whirlpool of working on deadlines to meet the confected net zero target of “saving the planet”.
This has all been sanctioned by unquestioning voters whilst promoted by the government funded ALPBC and MSM media who are partial to RE advertising. As for the unions and the super fund investment in this big Ponzi scheme we are now being told it is too big to fail or to pull out. But it will fail, we all know this, just a matter of when. Just one big money bath swirling around and around and taking our economy, our electricity grid and our environment down the plug hole with
That’s the real point, lots of people will be denied power, it’s called ‘demand management’.
Those who can afford to drop $10k on batteries every 15-20 years will be offered a cheaper rate.
I read recently that REALITY is the undisputed world champion of everything.
If it doesn’t work it doesn’t work, no matter how many people say it does.