Friday, June 24, 2022

Oooops!! Battery-Power Don't Work

Read between the lines here.

Wisconsin's largest utilities will delay the retirement of three large coal plants, including the Oak Creek Power Plant, due to energy supply fears. 

In separate statements Thursday, We Energies and Alliant Energy said the decision was made based on global supply chain and economic challenges along with a potential energy shortage in the summer of 2023....

Uh-huh.

...We Energies announced previously it would replace the plant with a $2 billion investment in 800 megawatts of solar power, 100 megawatts of wind power, 300 megawatts of natural gas power and 600 megawatts of battery storage....

THE key to all that Unicorn Farts-and-Sparkles Green crapola is "battery storage.It can't do the job.  The tech ain't ready for prime time.  

And that "solar power" part will require enormous chunks of raw land.  Then the power has to be rammed through wires to populated areas, which diminishes the available power where it's needed.  Need bigger wires and/or more raw land.  Not cheap.

Moreover, there's no there there:

 Solar panels produced only 1.9 percent as much energy in the United States in 2021 as did fossil fuels, according to data published by U.S. Department of Energy.

When the energy produced by windmills is added to the energy produced by solar panels, those two sources combined produced 6.2 percent as much energy as fossil fuels in 2021.

In fact, all renewable energy sources combined—including hydroelectric power, geothermal power, solar power, wind power and biomass power—produced only 15.9 percent as much power last year as fossil fuels....

That means that base-load utterly reliable coal and natgas generation has to be not less than 80% of the supply for at least a few more years.  Some say as much as twenty years.

Also interesting:  WE/Alliant are telling the Green Weenies in the Bai-Den junta to go pound sand; utility execs do not like angry mobs who 'lost power' due to stupid Washington tricks showing up at their doors with ropes and pitchforks.  They're following on the Exxon/Chevron model:  Jam It, Joe.

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