How Global Warming Really Works
- Thread starter Frisco_Slug_Esq
- Start date
trysail
Catch Me Who Can
- Joined
- Nov 8, 2005
- Posts
- 25,593
How Self Delusional Can We Be On The Cost of Electricity From Renewables?
https://s3.amazonaws.com/jo.nova/graph/energy/electricity/cost/cost-electricity-renewables-countries.jpg
by Francis Menton
(Exactly five (5) paragraphs)
...Let's take a closer look at Germany. Germany -- way out there with Denmark as having the most installed renewable capacity per capita combined with an astronomical consumer cost of electricity of around 30 cents per kWh -- is a country about which you can find a lot of data if you take the time to look around. For example, a German think tank called Agora Energiewende put out a big "Report on the German power system" in 2015. On page 13 we learn that Germany's peak electricity demand in 2013 was 83.3 GW. And right below that we learn that in 2014 Germany had installed capacity (all types) of 192 GW. Wait a minute -- they have capacity of almost two and a half times peak usage? A normally-functioning system based entirely on fossil fuels would only require capacity of about 1.2 times peak usage -- a 20% cushion to provide for things like maintenance outages and possible emergencies. So Germany has about double the generation capacity it would have in a fossil fuel-only system. Obviously, that's extremely costly.
Another chart on the same page 13 shows the amounts of "renewable" versus "conventional" capacity. The total for all "renewables" is 83.8 GW -- a figure higher than the peak demand of 83.3 GW. But, then there's also the fossil fuel and "conventional" capacity of 108.4 GW. That's essentially the same amount you would have if you had no wind or solar capacity at all. To put it another way, despite having built what would seem to be enough wind and solar capacity to supply all the electricity needs of the country, they have not been able to get rid of any of their fossil fuel generation capacity. They need all of it as back-up for when the wind and solar go dead.
Are wind and solar sources really so unreliable that you can't use them to replace any fossil fuel facilities at all? Yes. For example, in this post from 2016 I reported on other information from Agora Energiewende showing that in December of that year Germany had some nine days where the wind was so calm and the sun so dim that the wind and solar facilities produced only between 3% and 7% of installed capacity. On the other hand, this article from Clean Energy Wire on January 5, 2018 indicates that on the morning of New Year's Day this year the wind was so strong that Germany briefly (and for the first time ever) got all of its electricity from the renewables (mostly wind in this case).
And then there are two other factors by which the renewables lead to increasing the cost of electricity in Germany. One is that wild swings in production from wind and solar facilities cause comparably wild swings in the spot market where utilities buy power to balance supply with demand at the last minute. When the wind is blowing strongly, that spot price can actually turn negative, meaning that the Germans must pay neighboring countries like Poland to take surplus power off their hands. At other times when the wind dies at night and a conventional plant cannot be ramped up quickly enough to take over, the spot price can spike to over $10,000 per MWH. The final factor going into the Germans' cost of electricity is the close to $200 billion or so that they have spent in subsidies for renewables. Much of that may actually show up in their taxes rather than their electricity bills.
Now, how much of Germany's sky-high electricity costs can be attributed to each factor? I can't find any data with enough detail to let me answer that question. But here's what we do know with crystal clarity: no matter how cheaply you might be able to buy some more wind or solar "capacity," you will only drive the cost of electricity up, not down...
Another chart on the same page 13 shows the amounts of "renewable" versus "conventional" capacity. The total for all "renewables" is 83.8 GW -- a figure higher than the peak demand of 83.3 GW. But, then there's also the fossil fuel and "conventional" capacity of 108.4 GW. That's essentially the same amount you would have if you had no wind or solar capacity at all. To put it another way, despite having built what would seem to be enough wind and solar capacity to supply all the electricity needs of the country, they have not been able to get rid of any of their fossil fuel generation capacity. They need all of it as back-up for when the wind and solar go dead.
Are wind and solar sources really so unreliable that you can't use them to replace any fossil fuel facilities at all? Yes. For example, in this post from 2016 I reported on other information from Agora Energiewende showing that in December of that year Germany had some nine days where the wind was so calm and the sun so dim that the wind and solar facilities produced only between 3% and 7% of installed capacity. On the other hand, this article from Clean Energy Wire on January 5, 2018 indicates that on the morning of New Year's Day this year the wind was so strong that Germany briefly (and for the first time ever) got all of its electricity from the renewables (mostly wind in this case).
And then there are two other factors by which the renewables lead to increasing the cost of electricity in Germany. One is that wild swings in production from wind and solar facilities cause comparably wild swings in the spot market where utilities buy power to balance supply with demand at the last minute. When the wind is blowing strongly, that spot price can actually turn negative, meaning that the Germans must pay neighboring countries like Poland to take surplus power off their hands. At other times when the wind dies at night and a conventional plant cannot be ramped up quickly enough to take over, the spot price can spike to over $10,000 per MWH. The final factor going into the Germans' cost of electricity is the close to $200 billion or so that they have spent in subsidies for renewables. Much of that may actually show up in their taxes rather than their electricity bills.
Now, how much of Germany's sky-high electricity costs can be attributed to each factor? I can't find any data with enough detail to let me answer that question. But here's what we do know with crystal clarity: no matter how cheaply you might be able to buy some more wind or solar "capacity," you will only drive the cost of electricity up, not down...
trysail
Catch Me Who Can
- Joined
- Nov 8, 2005
- Posts
- 25,593
State Attorneys General Collusion Scheme With Tort Lawyers
https://cei.org/AGclimatescheme
Un-frickin'-believable.
(exactly six paragraphs)
...Those public records reveal the anatomy of what began as an “informal coalition” of AGs to use the legal system in pursuit of an overtly political agenda in coordination with activists and plaintiffs’ lawyers. That coalition disbanded under open records and media scrutiny, but it has now reconstituted through a program by which donorsfund, privately hire, andplace investigators and prosecutors in AG offices. It uses a nonprofit organization to pass the funding through and to provide the OAGs with a network of “pro bono” attorneys and public relations services. In return, OAGs provide office space to the privately hired prosecutors; agree they are there to “advanc[e] progressive clean energy, climate change, and environmental legal positions”; and provide regular reports about their work.
Led and funded by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, this scheme hires “Research Fellows,” which it then places as activist “Special Assistant Attorneys General.” All of the participating OAGs had to promise that this work would not get done but for this private funding. All OAGs also certified they are not violating the law by accepting privately funded prosecutors. At best, as several OAGs tacitly admit, this unprecedented arrangement operates in a gray area with neither prohibition nor authority. One state where the scheme is arguably illegal is New York, where disgraced former Attorney General Eric Schneiderman had a leading and organizing role at every stage of the campaign this paper describes.
The New York OAG openly boasted to a donor that its “need” for privately funded prosecutors was driven in part by the “significant strain on staff resources” that had been caused by its “non- litigation advocacy”—that described as its having “led” the resistance to the Trump administration. Importantly, the NYOAG also cited its campaign “building models for two different types of common law cases to seek compensation” from industries for supposedly having caused global warming; moreover, it “needs additional attorney resources to assist with this project.”On these bases and with a claim to having statutory authority to enter the unprecedented arrangement—a claim which on its face appears to be an invention—the NYOAG was awarded not one but two privately underwritten prosecutors.
This is the most dangerous example of a modus operandi we have found: it uses nonprofit organizations as pass-through entities by which donors can support elected officials to, in turn, use their offices to advance a specific set of policies favored by said donors. It also uses resources that legislatures will not provide and that donors cannot legally provide directly. The budget for climate policy work alone is in the tens of millions of dollars per year.
Across various levels of government—including mayors and governors—the bulk of this money is budgeted for pass-through nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and off-the-books consultants, report writers, and public relations (PR) firms that are hired through an NGO. The NGO takes a percentage as its fee (up to 24 percent in some cases). Another component involves privately hiring and then placing in-house, non- official personnel as advisors when they are actually employed by a donor’s group. The extension of this billion-dollar per year climate industry to privately fund AG investigations sets a dangerous precedent. It represents private interests commandeering the state’s police powers to target opponents of their policy agenda and to hijack the justice system as a way to overturn the democratic process’s rejection of a political agenda...
[Full quotation or more than 5 paragraphs of copyrighted material reduced per our forum guidelines.][/URL]
...Those public records reveal the anatomy of what began as an “informal coalition” of AGs to use the legal system in pursuit of an overtly political agenda in coordination with activists and plaintiffs’ lawyers. That coalition disbanded under open records and media scrutiny, but it has now reconstituted through a program by which donorsfund, privately hire, andplace investigators and prosecutors in AG offices. It uses a nonprofit organization to pass the funding through and to provide the OAGs with a network of “pro bono” attorneys and public relations services. In return, OAGs provide office space to the privately hired prosecutors; agree they are there to “advanc[e] progressive clean energy, climate change, and environmental legal positions”; and provide regular reports about their work.
Led and funded by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, this scheme hires “Research Fellows,” which it then places as activist “Special Assistant Attorneys General.” All of the participating OAGs had to promise that this work would not get done but for this private funding. All OAGs also certified they are not violating the law by accepting privately funded prosecutors. At best, as several OAGs tacitly admit, this unprecedented arrangement operates in a gray area with neither prohibition nor authority. One state where the scheme is arguably illegal is New York, where disgraced former Attorney General Eric Schneiderman had a leading and organizing role at every stage of the campaign this paper describes.
The New York OAG openly boasted to a donor that its “need” for privately funded prosecutors was driven in part by the “significant strain on staff resources” that had been caused by its “non- litigation advocacy”—that described as its having “led” the resistance to the Trump administration. Importantly, the NYOAG also cited its campaign “building models for two different types of common law cases to seek compensation” from industries for supposedly having caused global warming; moreover, it “needs additional attorney resources to assist with this project.”On these bases and with a claim to having statutory authority to enter the unprecedented arrangement—a claim which on its face appears to be an invention—the NYOAG was awarded not one but two privately underwritten prosecutors.
This is the most dangerous example of a modus operandi we have found: it uses nonprofit organizations as pass-through entities by which donors can support elected officials to, in turn, use their offices to advance a specific set of policies favored by said donors. It also uses resources that legislatures will not provide and that donors cannot legally provide directly. The budget for climate policy work alone is in the tens of millions of dollars per year.
Across various levels of government—including mayors and governors—the bulk of this money is budgeted for pass-through nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and off-the-books consultants, report writers, and public relations (PR) firms that are hired through an NGO. The NGO takes a percentage as its fee (up to 24 percent in some cases). Another component involves privately hiring and then placing in-house, non- official personnel as advisors when they are actually employed by a donor’s group. The extension of this billion-dollar per year climate industry to privately fund AG investigations sets a dangerous precedent. It represents private interests commandeering the state’s police powers to target opponents of their policy agenda and to hijack the justice system as a way to overturn the democratic process’s rejection of a political agenda...
[Full quotation or more than 5 paragraphs of copyrighted material reduced per our forum guidelines.][/URL]
A bunch of tort lawyers and State Attorneys General need to be indicted:
Maryland: Brian Frosh
New York: (Disgraced) Eric Schneiderman
Massachusetts: Maura Healy
Vermont: Bill Sorrell
https://cei.org/sites/default/files/1_1.png
Last edited by a moderator:
Similar threads
