Viv resides in Queensland and, though blessed with wonderfully broad insight on most things, he’s naturally drawn to matters with a strong Australian component. Consequently I decline many of his good articles for the lack of a Kiwi connection. However, on the so-called renewable energy bandwagon, or the Zero Carbon movement, New Zealand are as far up the creek as Australia is, so learning what’s happening over there and how they think and fare can only help.
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24th February 2022
No country on Earth relies entirely on wind and solar energy, but Australian politicians aim to achieve this miracle. They are leaders in the Stampede of the Green Lemmings.
https://saltbushclub.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/green-lemmings.jpeg
(Feel free to use this cartoon with no alterations.)
Solar energy has a huge problem. Even on sunny days almost nothing is generated to meet the demand peaks around breakfast time and dinner time — the solar energy union only works a six-hour day, goes on strike with little warning and takes quite a few sickies.
So, for at least 18 hours every day, electricity must come from somewhere else. Then around noon, the millions of solar panels pour out far more electricity than is needed, causing electrical and financial chaos in the electricity grid.
Naturally our green “engineers” see wind power as filling the solar energy gaps. But wind power has a union too and they take lots of sickies when there is no wind over large areas of the continent. And they down tools in storms, gales or cyclones in case their whirling toys are damaged.
So the green planners claim that batteries can solve these intermittent problems of the green energy twins. They will need to be the largest batteries ever.
Who wants a battery in the basement?
Batteries are just a crutch for a crippled generation system, and with fierce lithium battery fires reported regularly, who wants a humongous fire-prone battery over the back fence — or even, heaven forbid, in the basement?
A battery does not generate electricity. Every battery (including Snowy 2) is a net consumer of electricity. Batteries are very expensive, most lose capacity as they age, and every conversion between DC storage and AC transmission triggers energy losses. To collect, back up and re-distribute green electricity will require a continent-spanning spider-web of transmission lines with all the costs and energy losses such a network entails.
Still nights and calm cloudy days expose the problems of wind-and-solar-plus-batteries.
Suppose electricity consumers require 100 units of electricity every day. A well designed coal, nuclear or gas power station can do that, 24 hours a day, week after week, whatever the weather.
But to insure a wind or solar system against, say, seven days of calm or cloudy weather would require a battery capable of storing 700 units of electricity. To re-charge this huge battery while still supplying consumers will require much larger wind and solar generating capacity. However if several weeks of windy or sunny weather then occur, this big battery will sit idle, connected to a bloated expensive generation system that is capable of delivering far more power than is needed.
Deluge of green energy will shut the whole system
Sunny and windy weather brings a deluge of green energy, causing power prices to plunge at irregular intervals, and forcing reliable generators to stop producing and lose money. Eventually they will close. Once all coal-gas generators are gone, every (inevitable) green energy drought will awaken the spectre of extensive blackouts.
On top of these practical problems of green energy, we have the massive carbon credits scam, where speculators sell green fairy stories to greedy bankers, and real producers are forced to buy these fictitious “products”, passing the costs on to real industry and consumers.
Australia is following the green energy lemmings of Europe.
Germany once produced abundant reliable electricity from coal and nuclear power – the backbone of German industry. Then green ants started nibbling at this backbone, replacing it with wind and solar toys. Now Germany has expensive electricity, a grid in danger of collapse and must rely on imported gas from Russia, nuclear power from France or hydro-power from Scandinavia.
UK is also following similar foolish energy policies, even banning exploration of their own oil and gas resources.
Will overseas experience register here?
Australia is almost alone in the southern oceans, with no near neighbours to buy, beg or borrow electricity from. We cannot afford to follow the green energy lemmings or their billionaire pied pipers.
Viv Forbes
Washpool, Qld, Australia 4306
Viv Forbes has tertiary qualifications in science and financial analysis and no vested interests in hydro-carbon energy, apart from a petrol lawn mower, two petrol quad bikes, several diesel farm machines and a diesel generator in the shed.
More Food for Thought:
World’s Biggest Battery (in Australia) becomes World’s biggest Joke:
https://iowaclimate.org/2021/09/26/worlds-biggest-renewable-energy-battery-becomes-worlds-biggest-joke/
The dangers of explosions from battery farms:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9775467/UKs-battery-farms-spark-fears-explosions.html
The Impossible Costs of a fully wind/solar energy system:
https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2022-1-31-more-focus-on-the-impossible-costs-of-a-fully-windsolarbattery-energy-system
Big Battery sued for failing to help the power grid:
https://www.queenslandcountrylife.com.au/story/7446384/sas-big-tesla-battery-sued-for-allegedly-failing-to-help-qld-power-station-power-grid/
The high risk of large batteries – huge fires and toxic fumes:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/unregulated-risks-stored-energy-wade-allison
World’s Biggest Lithium-ion battery keeps melting:
https://principia-scientific.com/moss-landing-battery-goes-offline-due-to-overheating-for-second-time/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email
Spain’s Solar Energy Crisis: 62,000 People Bankrupt After Investing in Solar Panels:
https://www.realclearenergy.org/video/2022/02/23/spains_solar_energy_crisis_62000_people_bankrupt_after_investing_in_solar_panels_818059.html?
Views: 345
“No country on Earth relies entirely on wind and solar energy,…”
It’s not just ‘no country on Earth’, either. There is not a community of any size, large or small, that relies entirely on ‘wind and solar energy’ (if those terms mean wind-power and direct solar radiation, that is) – not a single city; not a single town; not a single eco-village, and not even a single ‘eco-hamlet’ – anywhere on Earth.
So, the greens have no actual demonstration model, anywhere on Earth, of a viable, ‘sustainable’ community that runs entirely on ‘renewable’ energy-sources to serve as a real-world proof of the validity of their claims. If they did have one, I think we can be sure that they would be crowing about it out of every mainstream media orifice night and day and ramming it down our throats at every opportunity. It would be like the existence of the Sun itself: absolute, in-your-face, undeniable proof that wind and solar energy systems really can provide all our energy needs. But the complete absence from the world scene of any such energy self-sustaining communities based on them informs us loud and clear that no such real-world proofs exist.
Of course though, just because no such eco-communities have been built it doesn’t necessarily mean that none are possible. However, all attempts to build them to date have failed and I think this means that we should regard any further attempts to build them as purely experimental with no guarantee of a successful outcome. Wind and solar power/energy systems are all still at a primitive level of development and are highly inefficient accordingly. (We are talking about typical efficiencies that are far less than 10% here.) We have no objective reason to suppose that making the whole continental community of Australia totally dependent on them with current state-of-art wind and solar technology will prove to be anything but a total social, technological, economic and humanitarian disaster.
Rick,
This hadn’t occurred to me, but you make a superb argument and it’s a well expressed analysis. It’s such a logically brilliant slam dunk that everyone should hear it. I hope you won’t mind if I use these arguments? With suitable attribution, of course. If we could know your real name it would increase our credibility, though it’s not essential.
Thank you!
Thank you, Richard. That’s very kind of you.
By all means use my arguments freely and give them exposure wherever you think fit. I would be glad to hear any feedback you get, whether positive or negative, and would be happy to answer any questions/objections about them if I can.
Regarding attribution, I think it will probably be best if you use my true name, which is is John Power. I’m sorry for the web-disguise up to now, but I felt it was a necessary precaution to protect myself and others who are connected with me from the hostile machinations of the negative forces of this world that are pitted against us and want to destroy us. However, I’m sensing that the tide of this war has begun to turn at last and we have nothing to fear from them now, so long as we stay true to the truth in our hearts.
I shall post here under my real name from now on for the sake of consistency.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
PS: Sorry for the delay in replying. This morning I discovered that some of my personal data has appeared on the Dark Web as a result of a massive computer-hack of the discus comments platform which occurred some years ago and I have had to spend most of the day sealing the breaches in my computer’s security.
Hi John,
Thanks for “coming out”! I understand. Awkward days we live in. Not to mention hacked off. (Hacked, get it?) Thanks for letting me use your argument and citing your name. Brave lad.
“and not even a single ‘eco-hamlet’ – anywhere on Earth.”
O.K. I presume you are limiting your absolutes to recently built villages and communities.
Don’t forget that we still have a tiny scattering of examples to watch: Where I grew up in Papua New Guinea the local people lived a subsistence on solar powered crops and forest. Their tools were made from rocks and bones; their arrows with a bamboo broad-point would skewer and bleed-out a wild porker or niggly neighbour. Sometimes not too picky about which one ended up in the dawa (earth-oven / hangi pit). They were trading cowrie shells and mother-of-pearl from the coast into the central highlands. Excellent business smarts , and very tight society rules largely related to survival.
They welcomed steel tools, medicine, soap, salt, written language, and also examples of power that would be effective against the paranormal dimensions around them.
Yes; the solar powered community can work, for a very few, very tough and cunning workaholics .
No, it will not allow anywhere near the comfort or convenience we enjoy as a global community today.
We are still only one generation away from degenerating back to stone-age technology.
Just as most plants and animals are only one or two generations away from extinction.
I think I know this walnutter?! Fascinating reminiscences from a little-known society, thanks.
That’s interesting, Walnutter. As you say,
“Yes; the solar powered community can work, for a very few, very tough and cunning workaholics .”
However, the green politicians and activists who are driving this ‘transition’ to so-called ‘renewables’ are pretending that it can also work for modern nations with tens or hundreds of millions of citizens who could not live a stone-age hunter-gatherer lifestyle, or a low-tech feudal-agrarian one even if they wanted to, which most of them don’t. Consequently, if this mad, dishonest and malevolent scheme is not abandoned before it’s too late, I think it is certain to procure the catastrophic collapse of modern civilization and the deaths of billions of people along with it.
Your saying that you were brought up in Papua New Guinea reminded me of the self-styled ‘anthropologist’ Margaret Mead, who wrote the controversial book ‘Growing Up In New Guinea’ and who appears to have been one of the original prime movers behind the whole Green movement. She was also the chief originator of the fictitious ‘scientific consensus’ on global warming, which she installed at the centre of the Green movement’s authoritarian political architecture at the AAAS ‘Endangered Atmosphere’ Conference (which she organised and chaired) in 1975. (See Where the Global Warming Hoax Was Born by Marjorie Mazel Hecht. It’s an eye-opener if you haven’t read it already.)
A few articles here that folks might find worth reading.
This article reports on a real-life experiment in powering a small community on ‘renewable energy’ (RE) under unusually good conditions:
Diesel Driven: World’s First “Net-Zero” Wind Power/Pumped Hydro System A Dismal Failure
This one provides a detailed critical analysis and extensive information resourse on the whole ‘net zero’ project and its flaws:
Casualties on the road to Net Zero Emissions
And just in case you were labouring under the misimpression that the hysterical climate-nutters over here in the UK actually know what they’re doing, there’s this:
“That’s Cooking Oil” – UK Extinction Rebellion Blockades the Wrong Truck
Happy Easter, everyone!
Thanks, John. I’ve just spent about two hours exploring the first article, it was so full of interest. A great start to the last day of Easter!