An amazing thing happened this week. Actually, two amazing things happened this week. The first was evidence of critical thinking from one European Commissioner. The second was an official, very public report by Wood Mackenzie that effectively spit in the face of people like the IEA’s Fatih Birol that claimed renewable energy output had nothing to do with the current energy crunch if crunch is still the right word, which I doubt.
And within that you have the kernel of Brexit the desire to run away from a mad power hungry bureaucracy in Brussels combined with a “Poverty of the Commons” policy approach to energy, but you could choose agriculture, financial regulations or mass population movement. Their logic is perfect it’s just reality being difficult.
Not for much longer, Boris had one role to complete the task and now we are bored with him. The next prime minister will not have an economically illiterate spouse driving the agenda. Boris was never very good standing up to powerful women!
The British aren’t very ideological in general, we will revert to a middle way and let others demonstrate the things not to do.
We are nowhere near peak idiocy... that won't come until these states cease to be able to maintain the basic tenets of modern civilization: food, water, power, etc.
A question: all things being equal, if the EU/UK had zero wind/solar capacity today, would it be in a better or worse situation re energy security? And would the energy crisis be less severe, or more?
This is a very interesting question. I think energy security, in the sense that you don't depend on imports, is a big advantage of wind and solar over fossil fuels. The intermittency problem, however, remains and compromises this advantage at certain times of the year. That said, I don't think Europe has ever seen an energy crunch like this before, even during the Cold War, and even during the Russia/Ukraine gas spat that made the Russians to turn off the taps for a few days. I think the idea that they can rely on renewables did have a part to play in this, perhaps in diverting attention from gas storage levels until time started to run out.
Incidentally, however, the Yamal pipeline has been sending gas back to Russia in the past few days, with Bloomberg -- not TASS, Bloomberg -- reporting that this was likely because of lack of buyers in Europe. This means speculation is rife and the EU is doing nothing, or can do nothing, about it, which makes it all even more idiotic.
With a mountain of respect, wind and solar intermittentency problem does not just “change throughout the year,” it is an inherent problem from the start. Think about it, the sun does not always shine and the wind does not always blow; across the board, the capacity factor, that is the actual energy generation to feed line (not to the light switch, but that’s a whole other set of issues with wind/solar), the actual capacity factor is around, call it, 33’ish% for wind and 23’ish% for solar; and that’s what it is. So I don’t understand where people come up with this logical fallacy that somehow wind/solar are going to be the reliability the customer’s satisfaction requires; and, again, never mind the fact we haven’t even discussed storage, nor transmission, nor the energy density at delivery - all of which, operate under a set of rules guided by chemistry and thermodynamics and so on… point is, people cannot just change the guiding principles of, say, the energy density of diesel and compare it to a battery truck and get away with it, just because they want to feel a certain way and that’s what they think; the way a diesel truck operates running down the road next to an electric truck, that doesn’t play out based on how the reader or I think - and it doesn’t - it doesn’t matter what we each think it matters how dense that energy is and how much of that energy can be stored effectively (and how quickly that energy gets replenished, but no need to bring that up, point still stands).
Absolutely, the intermittency problem is by no means a seasonal one only. It appears to be bad manners to point it out, though I focused on the additional seasonal problem of less sun and wind during European winter because of the winter crunch we're now in. As a friend says, you can't argue with physics. Again, I agree. You can't not agree, really, however you feel. But it seems it has become more important how people feel rather than what reality is.
None of this really answers my question. Yes, renewables are intermittent. We know this. But without them, would energy security be better or worse?
The speculation you refer to is a massive problem. European gas traders buying LT Russian gas indexed to Brent and reselling at insane spot prices shows how the push towards market pricing for gas has proven disastrous for European consumers.
Take renewables out of the equation, and what are we left with? Even more reliance on gas under market terms that allow middlemen to extract obscene rents from captive consumers, pushing millions into energy poverty.
So the question becomes, what is more urgent and easier to do: tackle intermittency, or reform market structures? Bright people are working on intermittency. Nobody is even talking about gas market reform. If I was a betting man, I’m not sure which one I would wager to be fixed first.
To be honest, I think it would be cheaper and quicker to reform markets than solve the intermittency problem. And with more gas suppliers now than ever before, you've got better supply security even though dependence on imports is fr from ideal.
Wind energy is finite. Maybe the reason for the wind “not blowing” in these places with many wind turbines is that the energy has been already removed by another wind turbine somewhere else (or nearby).
It’s not like energy is infinite just because it’s in wind form…maybe it’s simply not as large a supply source of energy as was thought (if indeed this thought ever occurred to its proponents in the first place).
This would explain the decreasing power returns to wind farm construction. It would also mean that building more turbines could yield relatively little additional power (non linear relationship between turbine count and energy produced).
Building more wind turbines to solve the problem of wind scarcity is akin to building more gas station pumps to cure a gasoline shortage. It misses the forest for the trees.
This is very interesting. My perception was that wind energy is renewable because there cannot be no weather and if there's weather, here or there there would be wind. I apologise for the simplistic description but I'm no meteorologist. Returns on wind farm construction are indeed dropping. Could you perhaps elaborate on the finiteness of wind or suggest further reading?
I think my point was so simple you might have overthought it.
Wind is caused by warming of the earth’s atmosphere by the sun. The sun heats areas differently based on contact, causing pressure differentials. Higher pressure air then flows to areas of lower pressure air, which is the phenomenon of wind. The kinetic energy of wind (moving air) is then removed from wind via wind turbines.
Once that kinetic energy is harnessed/dissipated you have to wait on more wind to arrive to continue spinning the turbines. Finite wind is why turbines are so often still.
My point is that the sun and atmosphere aren’t going to generate more wind just because there are more turbines to catch it. So if these wind farms, placed in the windiest places on earth can’t be depended on for reliable wind power then perhaps wind power is simply not a large enough source of electric generation to achieve the ambitions of its proponents. This ties back to the title of your piece “if it doesn’t work, do more of it.”
Thank you very much for this so simple and clear explanation. I admit I had not considered this aspect of things, falling into the trap of "renewable" energy.
"Renewable" energy? Nothing of the sort. I call wind and solar "rebuildables". These things last a finite amount of time and then have to be rebuilt. An interesting exercise to go through is to calculate the amount of energy required to build these things and then calculate the energy they provide over their lifetimes, which is less than then promoters tell us, and I think you will find that this is a colossal misallocation of resources. The other fact to contemplate is what are we going to do with all the waste after these things are decommissioned. Millions of tons of solar panel waste and dry burying turbine blades. What a waste of energy. Build more nukes.
Doing more of what doesn't work is literally the EU's motto. Whether its green energy, covid, immigration, you can always count on it.
And within that you have the kernel of Brexit the desire to run away from a mad power hungry bureaucracy in Brussels combined with a “Poverty of the Commons” policy approach to energy, but you could choose agriculture, financial regulations or mass population movement. Their logic is perfect it’s just reality being difficult.
Sadly, though, the pro-Brexit government is as pro-renewables as the Brussels gang if not a little more.
Not for much longer, Boris had one role to complete the task and now we are bored with him. The next prime minister will not have an economically illiterate spouse driving the agenda. Boris was never very good standing up to powerful women!
The British aren’t very ideological in general, we will revert to a middle way and let others demonstrate the things not to do.
Really enjoy your articles.
Take care
Paul
I wholeheartedly hope you're right and look forward to the Brits reverting to the sensible path! And thanks.
We are nowhere near peak idiocy... that won't come until these states cease to be able to maintain the basic tenets of modern civilization: food, water, power, etc.
But we're trying so hard to reach that peak, let's be fair.
A question: all things being equal, if the EU/UK had zero wind/solar capacity today, would it be in a better or worse situation re energy security? And would the energy crisis be less severe, or more?
This is a very interesting question. I think energy security, in the sense that you don't depend on imports, is a big advantage of wind and solar over fossil fuels. The intermittency problem, however, remains and compromises this advantage at certain times of the year. That said, I don't think Europe has ever seen an energy crunch like this before, even during the Cold War, and even during the Russia/Ukraine gas spat that made the Russians to turn off the taps for a few days. I think the idea that they can rely on renewables did have a part to play in this, perhaps in diverting attention from gas storage levels until time started to run out.
Incidentally, however, the Yamal pipeline has been sending gas back to Russia in the past few days, with Bloomberg -- not TASS, Bloomberg -- reporting that this was likely because of lack of buyers in Europe. This means speculation is rife and the EU is doing nothing, or can do nothing, about it, which makes it all even more idiotic.
With a mountain of respect, wind and solar intermittentency problem does not just “change throughout the year,” it is an inherent problem from the start. Think about it, the sun does not always shine and the wind does not always blow; across the board, the capacity factor, that is the actual energy generation to feed line (not to the light switch, but that’s a whole other set of issues with wind/solar), the actual capacity factor is around, call it, 33’ish% for wind and 23’ish% for solar; and that’s what it is. So I don’t understand where people come up with this logical fallacy that somehow wind/solar are going to be the reliability the customer’s satisfaction requires; and, again, never mind the fact we haven’t even discussed storage, nor transmission, nor the energy density at delivery - all of which, operate under a set of rules guided by chemistry and thermodynamics and so on… point is, people cannot just change the guiding principles of, say, the energy density of diesel and compare it to a battery truck and get away with it, just because they want to feel a certain way and that’s what they think; the way a diesel truck operates running down the road next to an electric truck, that doesn’t play out based on how the reader or I think - and it doesn’t - it doesn’t matter what we each think it matters how dense that energy is and how much of that energy can be stored effectively (and how quickly that energy gets replenished, but no need to bring that up, point still stands).
Absolutely, the intermittency problem is by no means a seasonal one only. It appears to be bad manners to point it out, though I focused on the additional seasonal problem of less sun and wind during European winter because of the winter crunch we're now in. As a friend says, you can't argue with physics. Again, I agree. You can't not agree, really, however you feel. But it seems it has become more important how people feel rather than what reality is.
Spot on. Really good article, enjoyed reading it especially the opening paragraph. Good work
None of this really answers my question. Yes, renewables are intermittent. We know this. But without them, would energy security be better or worse?
The speculation you refer to is a massive problem. European gas traders buying LT Russian gas indexed to Brent and reselling at insane spot prices shows how the push towards market pricing for gas has proven disastrous for European consumers.
Take renewables out of the equation, and what are we left with? Even more reliance on gas under market terms that allow middlemen to extract obscene rents from captive consumers, pushing millions into energy poverty.
So the question becomes, what is more urgent and easier to do: tackle intermittency, or reform market structures? Bright people are working on intermittency. Nobody is even talking about gas market reform. If I was a betting man, I’m not sure which one I would wager to be fixed first.
To be honest, I think it would be cheaper and quicker to reform markets than solve the intermittency problem. And with more gas suppliers now than ever before, you've got better supply security even though dependence on imports is fr from ideal.
Wind energy is finite. Maybe the reason for the wind “not blowing” in these places with many wind turbines is that the energy has been already removed by another wind turbine somewhere else (or nearby).
It’s not like energy is infinite just because it’s in wind form…maybe it’s simply not as large a supply source of energy as was thought (if indeed this thought ever occurred to its proponents in the first place).
This would explain the decreasing power returns to wind farm construction. It would also mean that building more turbines could yield relatively little additional power (non linear relationship between turbine count and energy produced).
Building more wind turbines to solve the problem of wind scarcity is akin to building more gas station pumps to cure a gasoline shortage. It misses the forest for the trees.
This is very interesting. My perception was that wind energy is renewable because there cannot be no weather and if there's weather, here or there there would be wind. I apologise for the simplistic description but I'm no meteorologist. Returns on wind farm construction are indeed dropping. Could you perhaps elaborate on the finiteness of wind or suggest further reading?
Here. https://home.uni-leipzig.de/energy/energy-fundamentals/15.htm
Good article. Apt title.
I think my point was so simple you might have overthought it.
Wind is caused by warming of the earth’s atmosphere by the sun. The sun heats areas differently based on contact, causing pressure differentials. Higher pressure air then flows to areas of lower pressure air, which is the phenomenon of wind. The kinetic energy of wind (moving air) is then removed from wind via wind turbines.
Once that kinetic energy is harnessed/dissipated you have to wait on more wind to arrive to continue spinning the turbines. Finite wind is why turbines are so often still.
My point is that the sun and atmosphere aren’t going to generate more wind just because there are more turbines to catch it. So if these wind farms, placed in the windiest places on earth can’t be depended on for reliable wind power then perhaps wind power is simply not a large enough source of electric generation to achieve the ambitions of its proponents. This ties back to the title of your piece “if it doesn’t work, do more of it.”
Thank you very much for this so simple and clear explanation. I admit I had not considered this aspect of things, falling into the trap of "renewable" energy.
"Renewable" energy? Nothing of the sort. I call wind and solar "rebuildables". These things last a finite amount of time and then have to be rebuilt. An interesting exercise to go through is to calculate the amount of energy required to build these things and then calculate the energy they provide over their lifetimes, which is less than then promoters tell us, and I think you will find that this is a colossal misallocation of resources. The other fact to contemplate is what are we going to do with all the waste after these things are decommissioned. Millions of tons of solar panel waste and dry burying turbine blades. What a waste of energy. Build more nukes.
And their lifetimes are not as long as advertised, at least for solar panels. The waste problem is a big one, and about to get a lot bigger.
Thank you for another great article, Irina. It's great insight into Europe's policy and troubles as I watch with concern from Toronto.