By Paul Homewood https://gridwatch.co.uk/ At midday today, solar power was supplying 11.2 GW out of a total demand of 28.27 GW. (This is after adding back solar, which normally appears as a reduction in demand, because it is embedded generation). Mad Miliband plans to triple the current solar capacity of 16 GW by 2030. […]
Bill Ponton reminds us that in addition to being fickle, renewables are also costly, in his American Thinker article What are the merits of renewables? Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images. The Spanish blackout made us all aware of how unstable the grid can get when renewables are in the driver’s seat, […]
With more than 50 million EU electricity consumers suffering blackouts yesterday, campaign group Net Zero Watch has reiterated its warning that the UK power grid is also becoming increasingly unstable.
It has long been predicted that replacing conventional synchronous generators, which rotate together with the grid, with asynchronous inverter-based resources like wind, solar, and batteries will increase the risk of blackouts. Grid planners recognize that unanticipated adverse events—such as line outages, generator trips, substation failures, and major faults—will continue to impact power grids.
The political pushback against futile climate obsession is moving forward. Voters who resent having their pockets picked via massive subsidies for renewables, while facing government pressure to buy expensive electric cars, unwanted heat pumps, and more, can clearly see an alternative. – – – Reform has said it will “wage war” against the “lunacy” of […]
As Schellenberger points out, with just “a hair” more frequency variation it could have been far worse. Will that happen some time soon? I’m not going to pretend I know. But I do know that the electricity system in most of Europe and many U.S. states is in the hands of crazed fanatics who have no idea what they are doing. My own bet would be that there are many far worse blackouts to come, until this idiotic “net zero” thing is abandoned.
Analysis of the blackout in Spain and Portugal comes in EurAsia Daily article Solar generation fell, and then the Spanish power grid collapsed: details of the blackout. Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images. New details are emerging why a large-scale blackout occurred in Spain, which lasted more than 10 hours and hit […]
Multiple studies have demonstrated wind and solar power remain more expensive than historically traditional sources of electricity, such as coal, natural gas, nuclear, and hydropower, and Energy Information Administration data back that up—disproving claims by renewable energy profiteers and their lobbying groups. As coal plants have been prematurely retired and replaced by wind and solar, prices have risen and reliability has declined. The greater the forced (through renewable mandates) or incentivized (through subsidies, tax breaks, and tax credits) incursion of wind and solar into a state’s electric power supply, the higher and faster the costs rise.
As if we didn’t know…’A large increase in energy storage will be critical to ensuring a clean power system by 2030′ – ELN summary. Two problems there: it’s unaffordable and impractical. Using words like ‘must’ and ‘critical’ is just foot-stamping, leading nowhere. Where would all the storage come from in that timescale, or any timescale […]
By Paul Homewood h/t Dennis Ambler Sounds like Australia’s Labour have been telling the same porkies a Britain’s! Jo Nova has the story: As the Opposition point out the Labor government went to the last election telling us 97 times how they would make our electricity $275 cheaper, but with the […]
The American version of the Green New Deal included some subsidies for inefficient wind and solar, but it was largely just a marketing gimmick for a big expansion in the burden of government (everything from Medicare for All to student loan bailouts). The European version, by contrast, has been more focused on making energy more […]
Trump’s executive order bomb, followed by Congressional action to limit funds from the IRA and IIJA, promise to gut, or profoundly reshape, the U.S. green energy movement. January 2025 may begin a long decline for green energy and a return to sensible energy policy.
Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
“We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. We know that in secrecy error undetected will flourish and subvert”. - J Robert Oppenheimer.
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