Home truths about wind and solar power

This year the Greens sponsored a Senate select committee to investigate the circulation consider the problem of information and misinformation about climate and energy matters. Clearly the intention was to reveal the hidden hand of fossil fuel interests funding groups that are resisting the transition to so-called renewable, clean and green power

For a start, It is interesting to note the amount of misinformation in the language of the net zero program.

"The sun and wind are free." You could say the same about coal, gas and oil, we just have to build expensive machinery to harness the power.

Renewable, clean and green. The turbines and solar panels are not renewable because they have short lives compared with conventional power facilities and the end-of-life disposal will soon be a serious concern.

They are not clean unless you think carbon dioxide, the breath of life on the planet, is a dangerous pollutant.

They are not green when you realize the heavy environmental footprint through their life cycle from the of exploration and mining, the transport, manufacture and construction of the equipment and finally then the disposal of toxic waste at the end of the road.

Just contemplate the volume of rocks that have to be processed in energy-intensive processes to build an electric vehicle!

The state of play in the green transition

Trillions of dollars have been spent worldwide, including tens of billions in Australia, to roll out RE infrastructure. This has produced a long list of negative consequences, including mountains of public debt.

Power is more expensive, causing domestic fuel poverty, closure of power-intensive industries and the diversion of investment to the US to take advantage of cheaper energy.

Blackouts are looming, and we can't afford to lose another coal power station.

Massive damage had been inflicted on the environment both at home and abroad.

Rural communities have become bitterly divided.

Large claims about the benefits of the net zero program are not backed by cost/benefit studies while the costs of major projects regularly blow out by factors up to ten in the case of Snowy2.0 and the Orana Far West Renewable Energy Zone.

The benefits are hard to find unless you count the jobs created in the public sector and subsidised industries.

Why wind won't work: The ABC of intermittent energy

ABC is not an acronym, just three things that everyone needs to know.

A: The grid must receive a continuous input to match demand, minute by minute.

B: The continuity of wind and solar input is broken at night when there is no sun and little or no wind.

C: Storage at the scale required to bridge the gaps is not feasible or affordable with current technology.

A chain is only as strong as the weakest link, and the supply of electricity is only as good as the weakest point of supply. In a grid loaded with RE, nights with little or no wind are the weak links.

We are told that Australia has marvellous wind resources, presumably based on average wind velocities, without considering the low points (the weakest links.)

The official meteorologists in the BOM did not issue wind drought warnings and the wind farmers apparently did not check the reliability of the wind supply. That is quite unlike the practice of dirt farmers who will very carefully check the reliability of the water supply including long term rainfall records.

Over a decade ago, Paul Miskelly and Anton Lang, working independently, used the AEMO records of wind power generation to discover prolonged periods, up to three days and nights, with very little generation across south-eastern Australia (the NEM.) Miskelly warned that the system would need 100% backup from a fleet of fast-acting gas turbines.

I would build more modern coal plant and save gas for domestic and industrial use.

Their work on wind droughts was discussed on Jo Nova's blog, The Energy Realists of Australia took it up and passed on the word to politicians and journalists, apparently to no effect.

So far the wind drought story and the ABC of intermittent energy has not been clearly explained by commentators and journalists, including those who are generally critical of the net zero program.

The evidence is publicly available in the AEMO records since 2009 and it can be found on the AEMO site and others including Aneroid.

People are urged to consult the NemWatch widget at breakfast and dinnertime to see if they will get a hot meal when there is less coal power in the grid.

One of the outcomes from this enquiry should be an investigation into failure of the meteorologists to issue wind drought warnings and a parallel investigation into the way that the subsidies and mandates for wind power were put in place without due diligence on the supply of wind.