{"id":414729,"date":"2025-11-26T10:08:41","date_gmt":"2025-11-26T09:08:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=414729"},"modified":"2025-12-25T01:13:56","modified_gmt":"2025-12-25T00:13:56","slug":"how-wasteful-is-green-energy-count-the-ways","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=414729","title":{"rendered":"How Wasteful is Green Energy? Count the\u00a0Ways"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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From Science Matters<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By\u00a0Ron Clutz<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

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Waste #1:  Money Spent, Projects Unknown<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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\u201cOxfam finds that for World Bank projects; many things can change during implementation. On average,\u00a0actual expenditures on the Bank\u2019s projects differ from budgeted amounts by 26\u201343%<\/strong>\u00a0above or below the claimed climate finance. Across the entire climate finance portfolio,\u00a0between 2017 and 2023, this difference amounts to US$24.28\u2013US$41.32 billion,<\/strong>\u201d the report states.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo information is available about what new climate actions were supported and which planned actions were cut.<\/strong> Now that the Bank has touted its focus on understanding and reporting on the impacts of its climate finance, it is critical to stress that without a full understanding of how much of what the Bank claims as climate finance at the project approval stage becomes actual expenditure, it is impossible to track and measure the impacts of the Bank\u2019s climate co-benefits in practice.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOxfam\u2019s report doesn\u2019t suggest funds are missing but points to a transparency issue<\/strong> that makes it difficult to know precisely what the Bank is delivering in terms of climate finance: where it\u2019s going and what it\u2019s supporting.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus, \u201ccontrary to claims online,\u201d it\u2019s not missing. It\u2019s just not accounted for!<\/strong> At this point, I\u2019m not sure which is the bigger racket:<\/strong> dubious national or supranational funding of projects<\/strong> that fall loosely under the aegis of purported climate change mitigation, or fact-checking.<\/strong> At least this can be said about fact-checking: It costs a hell of a lot less.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Waste #2:  Money Spent, Projects Dicey<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

For an idea of how much money is being gambled on Green Energy or \u201cCleanTech\u201d projects here is a chart for North America from The Big Green Machine:<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

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How Risky are these projects? An article at Mish Talk explores the question: How Many More Ridiculous Green Energy Projects Will Fail?<\/strong><\/a> Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The answer is all of them, in due time. Here are the latest spectacular failures.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Birds Fry Every Two Minutes<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It took 10 years, and hundreds-of-thousands of dead birds, before
the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System in California would meet its fate.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now finally here in 2025 it seems the reckoning has begun. The Las Vegas Review-Journal notes in an\u00a0editorial<\/a>\u00a0that \u201ca major California utility \u2014 Pacific Gas & Electric<\/strong>\u00a0\u2014 announced that it\u00a0will no longer buy power from the Ivanpah solar plant<\/strong>\u00a0off Interstate 15 near the Nevada-California border. As a result, two of the plant\u2019s three towers will shut down next year \u2014 and the third will probably follow.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Performance has proven so poor that PG&E has exercised its right to terminate the contract, about which negotiations<\/a> have been completed; there is no doubt that towers 1 and 3 will cease operations within roughly a year. And it appears to be the case that Edison too wants out<\/a>:<\/strong> \u201cthe utility is in \u2018ongoing discussions\u2019 with the project\u2019s owners and the federal government over ending the utility\u2019s contract.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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New Jersey Reaps the Wind, Again<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not just solar. Also note that Shell just backed out of a wind-energy project despite huge subsidies.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another offshore wind development stalled this week off the Jersey shore, making it the latest of three such projects to fail despite generous terms from the state. Energy giant\u00a0Shell wrote off its 50% stake in Atlantic Shores<\/strong>, choosing to take a $1 billion impairment instead of completing the 2,800-megawatt wind farm. New Jersey\u2019s Board of Public Utilities canceled its request for a wind-energy provider, leaving the unfinished project with no prospective customer.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ratepayers can rejoice<\/strong>. Atlantic Shores would have charged about three times the market price<\/strong> for the power it generated, according to a review by Whitestrand Consulting. That would have raised electricity rates by 11% for residents and 13% to 15% for businesses, forcing them to overpay by $48 billion over the wind farm\u2019s lifetime.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Waste # 3 A Mountain of Unrecyclable Waste<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The Institute for Energy Research notes Broken Windmill Blade Closes Nantucket Beaches<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A massive wind turbine blade shattered offshore Massachusetts causing extensive debris,<\/strong>\u00a0which shut down beaches on Nantucket Island and caused serious concern to fishermen, who worried that the debris could damage their boats.\u00a0The failure of the massive blade and the resulting debris caused the federal Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement to\u00a0suspend operations<\/a>\u00a0at Vineyard Wind until it could be determined whether the \u201cblade failure\u201d impacts other turbine blades on the development of the offshore wind farm.\u00a0Power production has been suspended, and installation of new wind turbine construction is on hold.<\/strong>\u00a0And as more green energy\u00a0trash washes ashore the local town is considering litigation<\/a>. The facility\u2019s\u00a0massive wind turbines<\/a>\u00a0began sending electricity to the grid this past winter.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Thousands of Old Wind Turbine Blades Pile Up in West Texas Officials in Sweetwater say an out-of-state company has made their town a dump for the seldom-seen trash created by renewable energy.<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Wind turbine blades are made from fiberglass, or fiber reinforced plastic, and\u00a0cannot be recycled<\/a>.<\/strong>\u00a0The Biden-Harris administration has not indicated what or who it expects to deal with\u00a0the mountain of waste that will result when thousands of turbine blades reach the end of their useful lives<\/a>\u00a0in 20 to 25 years, or in many cases less. In fact,\u00a0wind blades are\u00a0piling up in Texas<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Iowa<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>without proper disposal. Massive wind graveyards, for example, have popped up\u00a0on the outskirts of Sweetwater, Texas<\/a>. The pile of wind blades covers more than\u00a0thirty acres<\/a>, in stacks rising as high as basketball backboards.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Waste #4 Money Spent, Operational Failures<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Economic Reality<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s return to economic reality.  None of these projects are profitable, even with subsidies.<\/strong> That\u2019s why they fail.  Meanwhile, consumers face monstrous hikes in energy bills<\/strong> to pay for these boondoggles as mounds of unrecyclable garbage<\/strong> piles up in massive wind graveyards.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Green Machine provides the project categories in colors denoting Batteries, EVs, Solar and Wind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The BESS Failure Incident Database<\/strong><\/a> provides a record of costly problems with Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"World
Figure 1. A breakdown of the stationary energy storage failure events from the above table.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

EV Boosters reports\u00a0EV Business Failures Abound<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Chinese electric vehicle (EV) boom has turned into a dramatic shakeout.<\/strong> Around 2018, China had more than 500 EV startups registered. These included everything from serious automotive disruptors to local government-backed ventures<\/strong> that never made it past the prototype phase. What do we mean by \u201cEV startup\u201d? In this context, it includes any newly registered Chinese company involved in the design, development, or production of new energy vehicles (NEVs) \u2014 including electric, plug-in hybrid and hydrogen cars. Many were speculative projects, created quickly to benefit from generous state subsidies,<\/strong> often with minimal automotive expertise. While a few had serious ambitions and advanced prototypes, the vast majority never got a vehicle on the road.<\/strong> By 2025, only around 100 of these brands remain active. Analysts from McKinsey predict that by 2030, fewer than 50 Chinese EV companies will survive. This is not just a story of collapse, but also of market maturation, consolidation, and strategic realignment.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

SolarInsure Lists the Many Solar Business Failures<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Major Solar Bankruptcies as of September 2025 Include:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n