The Solar Mirage
In a long essay of over 5,000 words published in the New Yorker on July 9th, Bill McKibben sings in praise of solar power. He says: “In the past two years, without much notice, solar power has begun to truly transform the world’s energy system.” With his characteristic flair for hyperbole, McKibben, Archdeacon of the Church of Climate, paints a rosy picture of solar energy as humanity’s saviour from an alleged climate apocalypse. His narrative is seductive, brimming with optimism about photovoltaic panels blanketing the globe, harnessing the Sun’s inexhaustible energy to power civilisation while averting catastrophe.
Yet, beneath the rhetoric lies a troubling disconnect from reality — a glossing over of inconvenient truths about solar power’s limitations, its economic fallacies and the ideological zeal that drives McKibben’s activism. Far from transforming the world’s energy system, solar power remains a marginal contributor, propped up by subsidies, mired in practical challenges and tethered to a supply chain that undermines its ‘clean’ credentials.
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The green mantra, modified:
“You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time”
Especially when it night. It is not keeping the lights on.
I think it will get much worse. The rise of the BRICS countries who all have a rising share of trade are sick and tired of the western elites who for the past who knows how long have been manipulating them to their will. As the author says, much of the production takes place outside the west in these countries which are heavily reliant on fossil fuels. As these countries industrialise and we decline it will push us all into poverty. it seems to me that the so called elites are living in a wonder world where they make exorbitant amounts of money while the left close their eyes in order to gain control over the population. There is a reset of the world order taking place and I don’t think there is a thing the west can now do about it, apart from make a lot of noise and continue to threaten the rest of the world, but what is happening is the policies of the past 30 years are coming home to roost. BRICs is growing and I read yesterday that Turkey and Serbia are making noises about joining, whether this is bluff or not I don’t know… Read more »
Solar has a simple problem – the Duck Curve. Highest solar generation coincides with lowest demand causing a massive oversupply. This makes unit rates go negative as grids try and dump electricity. The greenturds like McKibben will warble on about battery storage or hydrogen production but both are not scalable solutions either due to materials or cost. Solar is more likely to crash a grid as Spain and a single cloud downed a grid in Australia.
Succinctly put.
Prof. Paul Christensen: Latest Electric Car Fire Research. Subscribe to this channel. – YouTube In this talk the dangers of lithium batteries are again well described. The idea that battery storage can in any way be tenable is for the birds.
Gridscale batteries could cause havoc in urban areas goes into more detail.
That photo looks like an image from a futuristic horror film. Not much bio diversity going on there.
PV solar technology was discovered 186 years ago and practical pv technology is 70 years old; BEV technology is over a century old – battery technology older – and wind power as old as Time. In free market capitalist economies, via the price process linked to supply and demand, “greedy” capitalists make themselves and others richer by finding the most efficient, most labour productive means to get a return on investment. They achieve this by bringing to market profitably what consumers want and value because it brings benefits to them, increases their marginal utility and therefore makes them wealthier, and for which they will pay the asking price. This way the consumer market moves from one technology to a new one – eg: moving from wind power pumps to drain land to steam engines, then electrical pumps – or to a new use for current technology. PV, wind power, BEVs meet none of these criteria which is why the consumer market has not spontaneously moved over to them, and why consumers are being driven by penalties, inducements bad mandates to adopt things they don’t want and which they know will make them poorer. The 21 Century has brought a Deindustrial… Read more »
A great article: factual and unemotional.
Climate change is always “Real and Happening now” until you look at real data. (data that has not been manipulated by government funded data adjusters. —-As regards the energy solutions that are allegedly going to fix this fake climate apocalypse, the Milibands and assorted eco socialists of the world will stand at podiums and tell us bare faced lies, which is what climate change politics has become. —-No science, no truth, just REPETITION
Excellent article and a devastating explosion of McKibben’s predictably ill-considered article.
Should be required reading by Miliband who knows virtually nothing despite being the UK’s ‘Secretary for Energy and Climate Change’.
Anyone who thinks that is a good idea to try to replace a system that that works at about ~90% productivity with a system that works intermittently and uncontrolled at ~18% productivity but depends entirely on massive public subsidies and variable Weather must deserve to fail.