Meredith Angwin in her 2020 book Shorting the Grid: The Hidden Fragility of Our Electric Grid makes the case that so-called "Renewable Portfolio Standards" (RPS) mandates in states with ISOs or ROs are actually schemes to require just-in-time natural gas fired generation to back up the solar and wind generation. (RPS schemes discriminate against nuclear, large hydro, and coal-fired generation.) Electric grid reliability is being sacrificed in states with RPS schemes.
Given by how my feed is blowing up, looks like a successful piece TC. Thank you for the invitation to add my 2.5 cents, I don't want Al accusing me of stealing his moniker again. 😉
As a fellow Texas resident I have also been growing increasingly concerned about the pedal to the metal growth almost everywhere in TX.
Per the teachings of Gene Nelson and Kilovar59 on their Substacks, wind and solar cannot make any realistic or substantive contribution to maintaining or contributing to grid inertia and thus data centers downstream. I cannot fathom the dark depths of the politics in TX with regards to wind and solar, something of which you are extremely familiar with given your advocacy work.
"Firstly, the sun’s energy is not renewable. In terms of our lifetime and millions of years before and after us, the sun's energy might appear self-sustaining or renewable, but it is not."
This statement illustrates the importance of 'framing.' As a species we've only been around some 2M years, which is a tiny fraction of the lifespan of our sun. Even more dramatic is the almost instantaneous (in geological and astronomical time frames) rise of civilization and all the incredible advances in energy efficiency that have occurred in the last 5000 years or so. The basic point is to describe our theories in terms of the applicable time-frame. I would argue that the correct way to frame the problem of human survival (sustainability) is in the context of the glacial periods which occur every 100K years or so. How we deal with that eventuality is far more pressing than the sell by date of our sun:)
What's interesting to me is how we've created what amounts to a false dichotomy, separating humankind from the natural system in which it's embedded, when the reality is that humanity is also a product of nature, and thus our impact on the planet can be characterized as a natural phenomenon. I use this argument with eco-warriors which gets them all worked up, as they've never considered the issue in those terms. Obviously it's a vast oversimplification that fails to take the effects of human intelligence into account, but it's still fun to watch their heads explode:)
Yep, REAL science, simply explained. We are users at best, sometimes abusers, yet in the end there is No Free Lunch. Literally nothing in this life is 'renewable', just exploitable to one degree or another, and limited. A fact not to be ignored.
Of course, you're right, in a literal sense. But words take on slightly different meanings depend on how they're used in a changing culture. "Renewable" energy is a term commonly used, not in a literal sense, but figuratively, because the sun 'comes up' every day, for free. (Praise God!) And when the wind blows, that's also free.
However, your real point is perfectly true - harnessing the sun's energy or the wind so we can get some use from it is not free. I'm surprised you didn't mention the 2nd Law - entropy is increasing with every energy transaction. A simple understanding of entropy is that the friction and waste heat is not re-usable - so there is a cost to every energy transaction.
Usable energy is not free, but some methods of capturing it are much more efficient than others.
"Usable energy is not free, but some methods of capturing it are much more efficient than others."
You've just described the entire history of civilization, i.e. overcoming the problems inherent in producing sustainable systems. A signature feature is that every advance in technology required increased energy inputs, usually in the form of higher temperatures. This is why we have a stone age, a bronze age, and an iron age. Each successive era was the result of attaining higher temperatures via some means or another, such as forced air from a blacksmith's bellows to the current technique of electric furnaces (no pun intended) to manufacture steel and aluminum.
Chase's argument, which was inspired by Alfred Korzybski's* 1933 'Science and Sanity' (also available at oceanofpdf.com) is that we suffer from an overuse of abstract nouns, which we fail to identify as such, believing them to be definitive when in fact different people will have different interpretations of their meaning.
* Korzybski established the discipline of 'general semantics' and is best known for his saying 'the map is not the territory.'
The vegetables and grains you eat stored solar energy, second order stored solar energy is the animal protein that we eat. It always pisses people off when I tell them that.
Look.. would you employ anyone that is unreliable and who will only work on the first shift and only when they feel like it, and another that will only work when they feel like it…. And it means that the rest of your work force has to kick in to support them.. .. well would you?
In fairness to the renewable energy crowd, I think what they actually mean is 'sustainable' not 'renewable' energy. It's a problem of semantics, which crops up everywhere when we fail to define our terms and/or define the frame in which the effects we're discussing occur.
That said, it is definitely disingenuous if not downright deceptive to speak about a 'sustainable' energy source without taking into account the energy expended to create the 'sustainable' system.
The perfect example is hydro-electric power. First we have to build the dam, then we have to install the turbines and dynamo, then we have to connect to a distribution network, all of which require energy inputs that must be subtracted from the gross amount of energy produced over time.
That said, you can get a lot of energy from the relatively small amount expended in creating a power dam. In that sense it is 'sustainable' as long as you frame the equation in terms of the number of years the dam exists. The same equation applies to a bridge, which today typically has a 100 year lifetime, although some Roman bridges built over 1000 years ago are still standing.
So, if you frame the question in terms of time in use, these structures provided a sustainable service, i.e. they were useful for a very long time, the amount of energy thereby saved being enormous in terms of that expended to build the structures.
Yep. Two separate issues here. One is how we define sustainability in a scientific manner, the other is how we overcome the prevalent 'scientism' that has infected popular culture.
We had a glaring example of scientism in action with the introduction of completely unnecessary so-called vaccines, which violated every established principle of epidemiology and virology, not to mention plain common sense.
I honestly don't know how to overcome this. Along with the advantages of mass communication comes the disservice of mass indoctrination which now extends to the entire planet.
There's an old adage in the investment world that states that 'the market can be irrational longer than we can remain solvent' which I certainly hope does not apply to humanity as a whole, although I have my doubts.
You article reminds me of my agitation just two days ago. I stumbled upon an Instagram post from famous snowboarder Jeremy Jones. He, of course, founded climate NGO Protect Our Winters.
His post concerned the apocalyptic climate aspects of the House GOP budget bill. You can almost predict the hyperbole in advance:
1) Launched an attack on the climate
2) 1M+ clean energy jobs on the line
3) Will stall climate progress, drive up energy costs and kill good-paying jobs across all 50 states
And finishing with a flourish....
4) This bill threatens everything we love
It's ok to find something disagreeable, but this sort of over the top nonsense is not my cup of tea.
Hello Douglas, thanks for stopping by..are you referring to the kinda dufus kid who didn't know the average amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, but was insisting that it caused less snowfall?
Physics, thermodynamics, chemistry are real in nature. What’s not is the climate cult and their inability to comprehend facts and reality. When nature behaves normally they make up excuses for everything. Truly a disgusting bunch.
I have been saying for a long time that if you are going to call solar and wind power renewable, you must do the same for nuclear. None of them are genuinely renewable but nuclear (especially with breeder reactors) can last practically forever. Probably much longer than the rare earth elements needed for solar.
One thing that's always bothered me about the 2nd law is claims of its universality. If it is indeed a universal law, then it would appear that both the Big Bang Theory and the Steady State Theory are in violation of the 2nd law. Also notice that the predicted proton decay has never been observed in any experiment designed to detect it, the current half-life (if such even exists) being pushed out to 1.67×10^34 years which is an awful long time:)
Protons have both mass and charge, and by the 2nd law are expected to decay into other particles, and yet they don't. Inside the nucleus they can swap places with neutrons of course, but on their own they appear to be immortal, which puzzles me to no end. Still, I am grateful to those who've dedicated their life to exploring these issues since I'm definitely not up to the task myself.
Texas now seems to lead the way down the road of destruction to our grid and people still do not understand what that means - and it is growth, growth. growth at all costs. We are now in a position of no return and renewables will continue to dominate as gas and nuclear remain our distant saviors.
Now the incursion of transmission - The Permian Basin Project - looks more like it is going to be a reality all to satisfy the Biden mandate of electrify the oil and gas markets. That's the pretense at least if you drill down on questions. Funny how they did without it for 150+ years and now there is less drilling than before - that will not change any time soon either. Drill baby drill is not just going to happen over night and it probably won't come from the Permian anyway.
Mostly it is to feed the bitcoin and AI markets and solar, wind and battery projects along the way. All the while hiding it's real mandate of growing Texas to be AI capital of the world.
Growth at any cost. We have lost about 36,000 acres and growing to solar and about 2 million to wind, just in Texas. Yes I am a Texas NIMBY!
The picture in my head is of the earth reclaiming that land, as only it can, slowly and steady swallowing up the abandoned structures until the fall apart, because the companies will not take them down. Superfund sites.
In the meantime, wait for blackouts - but hope ERCOT operators do their job well!
California with its greater amount of solar generation will likely experience blackouts like those on the Iberian Peninsula on April 28, 2025 before Texas does. Watch the GreenNUKE Substack https://greennuke.substack.com/ for their upcoming article regarding CAISO.
The renewable argument seems like a red herring to me. There is immense excess energy available that is not being harvested. So it seems to me (who failed in HS physics and never took another science class) that efficiency is the main factor in the argument, not renewability. Just wait ‘til I build my solar-panel-powered solar panel factory! You all said I was crazy, but I’ll show you!!!
Kidding aside, what about solar panels on satellites? How efficient are they, without having to contend with atmospheric interference?
Solar panels in space undergo significant degradation as a consequence of high energy particles colliding with them. Solar panels in space last about 15 years. See this 2021 article regarding the replacement of the ISS solar panels and batteries. https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/iss-solar-panels-mb1838/
The author writes that the new panels “will provide a total of 120kW of power.” Is that a complete statement? I thought power output included a time function? He writes that there are 16 sunrises per day, but that only confuses me more. (I will remind you that I failed my only HS science class…)
Andy! Can I interest you in a renewable solar powered perpetual motion machine made with solar panels from your solar panel powered solar panel factory?
Space is a very nasty place, filled with high energy particles that will destroy a satellite in a relatively short time. In addition, orbital objects are subject to the earth's gravitational field, which means the orbit will eventually decay, thus to maintain orbital position you'll need periodic energy inputs to offset gravitational effects.
The listen while I work option is incredible. I work outside with my hands so having time to sit down and read this much information isn’t an option. Little by little there is traction to educate and inform the largely apathetic populace. This renewable green scheme scam won’t end if we don’t get educated and force policy makers to do the same.
Meredith Angwin in her 2020 book Shorting the Grid: The Hidden Fragility of Our Electric Grid makes the case that so-called "Renewable Portfolio Standards" (RPS) mandates in states with ISOs or ROs are actually schemes to require just-in-time natural gas fired generation to back up the solar and wind generation. (RPS schemes discriminate against nuclear, large hydro, and coal-fired generation.) Electric grid reliability is being sacrificed in states with RPS schemes.
Given by how my feed is blowing up, looks like a successful piece TC. Thank you for the invitation to add my 2.5 cents, I don't want Al accusing me of stealing his moniker again. 😉
As a fellow Texas resident I have also been growing increasingly concerned about the pedal to the metal growth almost everywhere in TX.
Per the teachings of Gene Nelson and Kilovar59 on their Substacks, wind and solar cannot make any realistic or substantive contribution to maintaining or contributing to grid inertia and thus data centers downstream. I cannot fathom the dark depths of the politics in TX with regards to wind and solar, something of which you are extremely familiar with given your advocacy work.
Thank you for this JF.🙏🙏
"Firstly, the sun’s energy is not renewable. In terms of our lifetime and millions of years before and after us, the sun's energy might appear self-sustaining or renewable, but it is not."
This statement illustrates the importance of 'framing.' As a species we've only been around some 2M years, which is a tiny fraction of the lifespan of our sun. Even more dramatic is the almost instantaneous (in geological and astronomical time frames) rise of civilization and all the incredible advances in energy efficiency that have occurred in the last 5000 years or so. The basic point is to describe our theories in terms of the applicable time-frame. I would argue that the correct way to frame the problem of human survival (sustainability) is in the context of the glacial periods which occur every 100K years or so. How we deal with that eventuality is far more pressing than the sell by date of our sun:)
What's interesting to me is how we've created what amounts to a false dichotomy, separating humankind from the natural system in which it's embedded, when the reality is that humanity is also a product of nature, and thus our impact on the planet can be characterized as a natural phenomenon. I use this argument with eco-warriors which gets them all worked up, as they've never considered the issue in those terms. Obviously it's a vast oversimplification that fails to take the effects of human intelligence into account, but it's still fun to watch their heads explode:)
Agreed.
Yep, REAL science, simply explained. We are users at best, sometimes abusers, yet in the end there is No Free Lunch. Literally nothing in this life is 'renewable', just exploitable to one degree or another, and limited. A fact not to be ignored.
Thank you kindly SpC, and said extremely well !
Of course, you're right, in a literal sense. But words take on slightly different meanings depend on how they're used in a changing culture. "Renewable" energy is a term commonly used, not in a literal sense, but figuratively, because the sun 'comes up' every day, for free. (Praise God!) And when the wind blows, that's also free.
However, your real point is perfectly true - harnessing the sun's energy or the wind so we can get some use from it is not free. I'm surprised you didn't mention the 2nd Law - entropy is increasing with every energy transaction. A simple understanding of entropy is that the friction and waste heat is not re-usable - so there is a cost to every energy transaction.
Usable energy is not free, but some methods of capturing it are much more efficient than others.
"Usable energy is not free, but some methods of capturing it are much more efficient than others."
You've just described the entire history of civilization, i.e. overcoming the problems inherent in producing sustainable systems. A signature feature is that every advance in technology required increased energy inputs, usually in the form of higher temperatures. This is why we have a stone age, a bronze age, and an iron age. Each successive era was the result of attaining higher temperatures via some means or another, such as forced air from a blacksmith's bellows to the current technique of electric furnaces (no pun intended) to manufacture steel and aluminum.
Superbly Said O’Great eBear 😉! I appreciate your well thought out comments.
Restacks also appreciated as you deem fit.
Best , TC
Thank you Al, please take a Second Look, I did invoke the Second Law - a Double Double Entendre ?
Also see bonus video on Entropy at the bottom of the article.
Best
TC
"But words take on slightly different meanings depend on how they're used in a changing culture."
I highly recommend 'The Tyranny of Words" by Stuart Chase:
https://oceanofpdf.com/authors/stuart-chase/pdf-epub-the-tyranny-of-words-download/
Chase's argument, which was inspired by Alfred Korzybski's* 1933 'Science and Sanity' (also available at oceanofpdf.com) is that we suffer from an overuse of abstract nouns, which we fail to identify as such, believing them to be definitive when in fact different people will have different interpretations of their meaning.
* Korzybski established the discipline of 'general semantics' and is best known for his saying 'the map is not the territory.'
....And S.I. Hayakawa worked to make general semantics more understandable to the general public with his 1964 book Language in Thought and Action.
https://www.amazon.com/Language-Thought-Action-S-I-Hayakawa/dp/0156482401
The vegetables and grains you eat stored solar energy, second order stored solar energy is the animal protein that we eat. It always pisses people off when I tell them that.
Yes, God engineered the first level of capturing energy from the sun - photosynthesis, which, as you say, is the basis of all life.
🌻👍
Look.. would you employ anyone that is unreliable and who will only work on the first shift and only when they feel like it, and another that will only work when they feel like it…. And it means that the rest of your work force has to kick in to support them.. .. well would you?
Good analogy for inherently intermittent and inherently low capacity factor solar and wind generation.
In fairness to the renewable energy crowd, I think what they actually mean is 'sustainable' not 'renewable' energy. It's a problem of semantics, which crops up everywhere when we fail to define our terms and/or define the frame in which the effects we're discussing occur.
That said, it is definitely disingenuous if not downright deceptive to speak about a 'sustainable' energy source without taking into account the energy expended to create the 'sustainable' system.
The perfect example is hydro-electric power. First we have to build the dam, then we have to install the turbines and dynamo, then we have to connect to a distribution network, all of which require energy inputs that must be subtracted from the gross amount of energy produced over time.
That said, you can get a lot of energy from the relatively small amount expended in creating a power dam. In that sense it is 'sustainable' as long as you frame the equation in terms of the number of years the dam exists. The same equation applies to a bridge, which today typically has a 100 year lifetime, although some Roman bridges built over 1000 years ago are still standing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puente_Romano,_M%C3%A9rida
Here's another example of a bridge structure which was in use from 112 CE to 1973!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aqueduct_of_Segovia
So, if you frame the question in terms of time in use, these structures provided a sustainable service, i.e. they were useful for a very long time, the amount of energy thereby saved being enormous in terms of that expended to build the structures.
We must stay vigilant and rigorous, otherwide the sales and marketing pukes will create another scare, and more trillions will be wasted.
I did hear about a sustainable solar driven perpetual motion machine recently on ChatGPT though….let me search that and get back to you.🤪
Yep. Two separate issues here. One is how we define sustainability in a scientific manner, the other is how we overcome the prevalent 'scientism' that has infected popular culture.
We had a glaring example of scientism in action with the introduction of completely unnecessary so-called vaccines, which violated every established principle of epidemiology and virology, not to mention plain common sense.
I honestly don't know how to overcome this. Along with the advantages of mass communication comes the disservice of mass indoctrination which now extends to the entire planet.
There's an old adage in the investment world that states that 'the market can be irrational longer than we can remain solvent' which I certainly hope does not apply to humanity as a whole, although I have my doubts.
The words "sustainable" and "renewable" are now permanently besmirched in the scientific realm and beyond.
You article reminds me of my agitation just two days ago. I stumbled upon an Instagram post from famous snowboarder Jeremy Jones. He, of course, founded climate NGO Protect Our Winters.
His post concerned the apocalyptic climate aspects of the House GOP budget bill. You can almost predict the hyperbole in advance:
1) Launched an attack on the climate
2) 1M+ clean energy jobs on the line
3) Will stall climate progress, drive up energy costs and kill good-paying jobs across all 50 states
And finishing with a flourish....
4) This bill threatens everything we love
It's ok to find something disagreeable, but this sort of over the top nonsense is not my cup of tea.
Hello Douglas, thanks for stopping by..are you referring to the kinda dufus kid who didn't know the average amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, but was insisting that it caused less snowfall?
Exactly!
Facts matter.
Physics, thermodynamics, chemistry are real in nature. What’s not is the climate cult and their inability to comprehend facts and reality. When nature behaves normally they make up excuses for everything. Truly a disgusting bunch.
And one more thing - energy is not clean. Period.
I have been saying for a long time that if you are going to call solar and wind power renewable, you must do the same for nuclear. None of them are genuinely renewable but nuclear (especially with breeder reactors) can last practically forever. Probably much longer than the rare earth elements needed for solar.
Good points. No wonder fossil fuel interests oppose nuclear power, particularly breeder reactors.
I had a big debate with Grok over that fact so in the end he had to concede that I was correct. I will post the conclusion above.
Agreed Max, E=mc^2 makes all the diffrence!
A good summary of the issues surrounding the 2nd law can be found here (of all places):
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7517180/
One thing that's always bothered me about the 2nd law is claims of its universality. If it is indeed a universal law, then it would appear that both the Big Bang Theory and the Steady State Theory are in violation of the 2nd law. Also notice that the predicted proton decay has never been observed in any experiment designed to detect it, the current half-life (if such even exists) being pushed out to 1.67×10^34 years which is an awful long time:)
Protons have both mass and charge, and by the 2nd law are expected to decay into other particles, and yet they don't. Inside the nucleus they can swap places with neutrons of course, but on their own they appear to be immortal, which puzzles me to no end. Still, I am grateful to those who've dedicated their life to exploring these issues since I'm definitely not up to the task myself.
Great collaboration guys - thanks.
Texas now seems to lead the way down the road of destruction to our grid and people still do not understand what that means - and it is growth, growth. growth at all costs. We are now in a position of no return and renewables will continue to dominate as gas and nuclear remain our distant saviors.
Now the incursion of transmission - The Permian Basin Project - looks more like it is going to be a reality all to satisfy the Biden mandate of electrify the oil and gas markets. That's the pretense at least if you drill down on questions. Funny how they did without it for 150+ years and now there is less drilling than before - that will not change any time soon either. Drill baby drill is not just going to happen over night and it probably won't come from the Permian anyway.
Mostly it is to feed the bitcoin and AI markets and solar, wind and battery projects along the way. All the while hiding it's real mandate of growing Texas to be AI capital of the world.
Growth at any cost. We have lost about 36,000 acres and growing to solar and about 2 million to wind, just in Texas. Yes I am a Texas NIMBY!
The picture in my head is of the earth reclaiming that land, as only it can, slowly and steady swallowing up the abandoned structures until the fall apart, because the companies will not take them down. Superfund sites.
In the meantime, wait for blackouts - but hope ERCOT operators do their job well!
California with its greater amount of solar generation will likely experience blackouts like those on the Iberian Peninsula on April 28, 2025 before Texas does. Watch the GreenNUKE Substack https://greennuke.substack.com/ for their upcoming article regarding CAISO.
The renewable argument seems like a red herring to me. There is immense excess energy available that is not being harvested. So it seems to me (who failed in HS physics and never took another science class) that efficiency is the main factor in the argument, not renewability. Just wait ‘til I build my solar-panel-powered solar panel factory! You all said I was crazy, but I’ll show you!!!
Kidding aside, what about solar panels on satellites? How efficient are they, without having to contend with atmospheric interference?
Solar panels in space undergo significant degradation as a consequence of high energy particles colliding with them. Solar panels in space last about 15 years. See this 2021 article regarding the replacement of the ISS solar panels and batteries. https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/iss-solar-panels-mb1838/
The author writes that the new panels “will provide a total of 120kW of power.” Is that a complete statement? I thought power output included a time function? He writes that there are 16 sunrises per day, but that only confuses me more. (I will remind you that I failed my only HS science class…)
Andy! Can I interest you in a renewable solar powered perpetual motion machine made with solar panels from your solar panel powered solar panel factory?
🤔,.........🤣
You laugh…
Space is a very nasty place, filled with high energy particles that will destroy a satellite in a relatively short time. In addition, orbital objects are subject to the earth's gravitational field, which means the orbit will eventually decay, thus to maintain orbital position you'll need periodic energy inputs to offset gravitational effects.
That was great. The knowledge I’m gaining from Substack is amazing. Thank you.
Agreed. I get lost down the rabbit hole of Substack every morning. My day is shot before I know it, but hopefully I am a little more educated.
The listen while I work option is incredible. I work outside with my hands so having time to sit down and read this much information isn’t an option. Little by little there is traction to educate and inform the largely apathetic populace. This renewable green scheme scam won’t end if we don’t get educated and force policy makers to do the same.
Absolutely outstanding
Honored Stu, many thanks. Keep that torch lit.
Best, TC