Tag: solar power
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Make Sure to Keep a Diesel in the Shed
by Viv Forbes, Executive Director, The Saltbush Club, ©2024 (Apr. 22, 2024) — A Diesel in the Shed. You can have your solar panels and your turbines on the hills;You can use the warmth of sunshine to reduce your heating bills. You can dream you’re self-sufficient as you weed your vegie bed;As long as you…
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Going Solar In Your Home – Things You Should Know
by Contributor (Apr. 14, 2022) — You probably have questions or don’t know what to ask if you’re considering going solar. There’s also more to the process than slapping panels on the roof, and you need to ensure you’re going about it correctly. So before hiring the first company that catches your attention, keep the…
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Why “Cheap” Solar Increases the Price of Power
by David Wojick, CFACT, ©2022 (Mar. 4, 2022) — I keep hearing that since solar power is cheap it pays to add it to the generation mix. Sometimes this claim is caveated, saying that it only pays up to a certain fraction of total generating capacity. Typical limits range from 30% to 60%. Moreover this…
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The Blackout Agenda
by Viv Forbes, Executive Director, The Saltbush Club, ©2021 (Jun. 13, 2021) — Solar power fails every day from sunset to sunrise as well as during rain, hail, snow or dust storms. No matter how much land we smother in subsidised solar panels, they will still fail. Wind power fails often and unpredictably, sometimes for days,…
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CA Electric Power Chief Says Serious Problems Lie Ahead
by David Wojick, CFACT, ©2021 (Apr. 19, 2021) — The head of the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) recently gave a revealing interview, in an obscure outlet he probably figured would not travel. It is “Yale Insights” published by the Yale School of Management. Elliot Mainzer, President and CEO of CAISO is a Yalie, so…
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It Takes Big Energy to Back Up Wind and Solar
by David Wojick, CFACT, ©2021 (Mar. 22, 2021) — Power system design can be extremely complex but there is one simple number that is painfully obvious. At least it is painful to the advocates of wind and solar power, which may be why we never hear about it. It is a big, bad number. To…
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Virginia Will Pay Trillions for Renewable Power
by David Wojick, CFACT, ©2021 (Feb. 5, 2021) — Virginia’s 100% renewables mandate has been estimated to cost its people billions of dollars, but a more realistic estimate is trillions. Dominion Energy, the big Virginia utility, must know this, but they are hiding it so they can build a lot of expensive wind and solar…
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Wind and Solar are Losing Ground to Gas
by David Wojick, guest blogger, WattsUpWithThat, ©2020 (Dec. 29, 2020) — The subsidies that never die — for wind and solar power — are back. With Christmas coming on the Lame Duck Congress elected to throw untold additional billions at renewables. What is amusing is that gas-fired power generation, a fossil fuel with no subsidy,…
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New York Can’t Buy its Way out of Coming Blackouts
by David Wojick, CFACT, ©2020 (Dec. 24, 2020) — Even if battery backup worked, its astronomical cost puts the idea in Fantasyland David Wojick New York City will soon be home to the world’s biggest industrial-scale battery system. It’s designed to back up the city’s growing reliance on intermittent “renewable” electricity. At 400 megawatt-hours (MWh),…
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The Green Road to Blackouts
“THE SICKLY GREEN TWINS” by Viv Forbes, Executive Director, The Saltbush Club, ©2020 (Aug. 31, 2020) — To download this article with all illustrations click: https://saltbushclub.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/green-blackouts.pdf California leads the way to electricity blackouts, closely followed by South Australia. They both created this problem by taxing, banning, delaying or demolishing reliable coal, nuclear, gas or hydro…
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Wind and Solar Power Cannot Drive COVID Recovery
“NEW NORMAL” VS. “OLD NORMAL” by Tom Harris and Dr. Jay Lehr, ©2020 (Jul. 3, 2020) — On Thursday, July 9, the International Energy Agency (IEA) is hosting its Clean Energy Transitions Summit, an on-line event that IEA executive director Dr. Fatih Birol calls “the most important global event on energy and climate issues of…
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Assistance to Energy Companies Should be Temporary
“A LEADING CANDIDATE FOR CANCELLATION” by Dr. Jay Lehr & Tom Harris, ©2020 (Jun. 26, 2020) — Friends of the Earth (FOE) and other environmental groups have ramped up their opposition to subsidies for the fossil fuel industry during our recovery from COVID-19. In their June 24 news release, FOE attacked the SAVE Jobs Act…
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The Needless Rush to Return to the 18th Century — There’s NO Denying
“DON’T FALL FOR THE HYPE” January 20, 2020 Dear Friends and Colleagues: I apologize in advance for the length of this. I understand that my comments may likely be rejected or ignored by some who’ve already succumbed to the false prophesies of doom and gloom and believe that we are incinerating our planet by enjoying…
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Lights Out on Footy Night
IF NOT WIND AND SOLAR, THEN WHAT? by Viv Forbes, Executive Director, The Saltbush Club, ©2019 (Apr. 30, 2019) — It is 8pm on a big footy night. It is frosty with no wind. All the heaters, air-cons and TV’s are drawing power. Suddenly it is half time. All the jugs are then switched on…
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Batteries Cannot Make Renewables Reliable
“WILDLY PROHIBITIVE” by David Wojick, Ph.D., CFACT, ©2019 (Apr. 27, 2019) — Utilities are starting to experiment with adding batteries to wind and solar projects. These storage projects are feeding the mistaken belief that batteries can cure the intermittency that makes wind and solar unworkable as a reliable source of power. The reality is that…
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Green Wave Staggers U.S. Power Utilities
“VERY BAD NEWS” FOR CUSTOMERS by David Wojick, Ph.D., CFACT, 2018 (Dec. 28, 2018) — In the U.S., we tend to build new generating capacity in great waves, roughly twenty years apart. In the late 1970s, when electricity use was rapidly increasing, we built over 300,000 MW of coal fired power plants. Then around 2000…
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Germany’s Green Transition Has Hit a Brick Wall
EVEN WORSE, ITS GROWING PROBLEMS WITH WIND AND SOLAR SPELL TROUBLE ALL OVER THE GLOBE by Oddvar Lundseng, Hans Johnsen and Stein Bergsmark, ©2018 (Dec. 20, 2018) — More people are finally beginning to realize that supplying the world with sufficient, stable energy solely from sun and wind power will be impossible. Germany took on…
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Dear Lord, What Were You Thinking?
A SUBTLE SUGGESTION DURING A JAZZ CONCERT GOT ME THINKING ABOUT HISTORY, POLITICS AND ENERGY by Paul Driessen, ©2018 (Feb. 13, 2018) — What a marvelous evening it was. World-class drummer Tommy Igoe and his Birdland All-Stars treated the George Mason University Center for the Arts audience to a joyous evening of jazz, funk, Brazilian…
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The Green Empress has No Clothes
“GREEN TOTALITARIANISM” by Viv Forbes, ©2018, carbon-sense.com (Jan. 17, 2018) — During December 2017, Germany’s millions of solar panels received just 10 hours of sunshine; and when solar energy did filter through the clouds, most of the panels were covered in snow. Even committed Green Disciples with a huge Tesla battery in their garage soon…
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Solar Ovens and Sustained Poverty for Africa
AFRICAN FAMILIES AND HOSPITALS CANNOT RELY ON LIMITED SOLAR POWER, INSTEAD OF ELECTRICITY by Steven Lyazi, ©2017 (Apr. 22, 2017) — Solar technology in Africa, including my country of Uganda, would bring good news to millions of people who today must use firewood, charcoal and dung for cooking. Millions of Africans die from lung infections…