{"id":254911,"date":"2023-04-27T12:39:06","date_gmt":"2023-04-27T10:39:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=254911"},"modified":"2023-04-27T12:39:09","modified_gmt":"2023-04-27T10:39:09","slug":"the-energy-transition-is-a-delusion-for-cheap-wind-and-solar-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=254911","title":{"rendered":"The Energy Transition Is a Delusion for Cheap Wind and Solar Power"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Solar energy panel photovoltaic cell and wind turbine farm power generator in nature landscape for production of renewable green energy is friendly industry. Clean sustainable development concept.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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From Real Clear Wire<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By\u00a0Benjamin Zycher<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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https:\/\/twitter.com\/POTUS\/status\/1528865115449217028 Office of the President of the United States<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u201cenergy transition\u201d continues to receive thunderous applause<\/a> from all the usual Beltway suspects, an exercise in groupthink fantasy amazing to behold. For those with actual lives to live and thus uninterested in silliness: The \u201cenergy transition\u201d is a massive shift, wholly artificial and politicized, from conventional energy inexpensive (Table 1b<\/a> and here<\/a>), reliable<\/a>, and very clean<\/a> given the proper policy environment, toward such unconventional energy technologies as wind and solar power. They are expensive<\/a>, unreliable<\/a>, and deeply problematic environmentally<\/a> in terms of toxic metal pollution, wildlife destruction, land use massive and unsightly, emissions of conventional pollutants, and in a larger context large and inexorable reductions in aggregate wealth and thus the social willingness to invest in environmental protection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the Beltway being what it is, the fantasists are impervious to reality, until the massive costs and dislocations and absurdities become impossible to ignore. (Witness<\/a>, for example<\/a>, California<\/a>.) Even as they backtrack on their confident assertions that a modern economy can be powered with the energy equivalent of pixie dust, they argue that the emerging problems are little more than growing pains attendant upon short run rigidities, and all will be well given some more time, more subsidies, and more magical thinking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Uh, no. The obstacles confronting the \u201cenergy transition\u201d are fundamental \u2014 they are caused by the very nature of unconventional energy \u2014 driven by massive costs, technical and engineering realities, severe constraints in terms of needed physical inputs, and at a political level growing local opposition<\/a> to the unconventional energy facilities central to the \u201ctransition.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These realities \u2014 there\u2019s that word again \u2014 are discussed in detail in a major recent paper<\/a> by Mark P. Mills of the Manhattan Institute. This brief discussion cannot do it justice, but let us first quote Mills directly:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In these circumstances, policymakers are beginning to grasp the enormous difficulty of replacing even a mere 10% share of global hydrocarbons\u2014the share supplied by Russia\u2014never mind the impossibility of trying to replace all of society\u2019s use of hydrocarbons with solar, wind, and battery (SWB) technologies. Two decades of aspirational policies and trillions of dollars in spending, most of it on SWB tech, have not yielded an \u201cenergy transition\u201d that eliminates hydrocarbons. Regardless of climate-inspired motivations, it is a dangerous delusion to believe that spending yet more, and more quickly, will do so. The lessons of the recent decade make it clear that SWB technologies cannot be surged in times of need, are neither inherently \u201cclean\u201d nor even independent of hydrocarbons, and are not cheap.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mills makes a number of hard realities clear, among which are the following:<\/p>\n\n\n\n