When the world’s richest entrepreneur says wind and solar will never work, it’s probably time to listen.
Bill Gates made a fortune applying common sense to the untapped market of home computing. The meme has it that IBM’s CEO believed there was only a market for five computers in the entire world. Gates thought otherwise. Building a better system than any of his rivals and shrewdly working the marketplace, resulted in hundreds of millions hooked on PCs, Windows and Office. This is a man that knows a thing or two about systems and a lot about what it takes to satisfy the market.
For almost a century, electricity generation and distribution were treated as a tightly integrated system: it was designed and built as one, and is meant to operate as designed. However, the chaotic delivery of wind and solar have all but trashed the electricity generation and delivery system, as we know it. Germany and South Australia are only the most obvious examples.
During an interview at Stanford University late last year, Bill Gates attacks the idiots who believe that we’re all just a heartbeat away from an all wind and sun powered future.
Gates on renewables: How would Tokyo survive a 3 day typhoon with unreliable energy?
Jo Nova Blog
Jo Nova
14 February 2019
Make no mistake, Bill Gates totally believes the climate change scare story but even he can see that renewables are not the answer, it’s not about the cost, it’s the reliability.
He quotes Vaclav Smil:
Here’s Toyko, 2p7 million people, you have three days of a cyclone every year. It’s 23GW of electricity for three days. Tell me what battery solution is going sit there and provide that power.
As Gates says: Let’s not jerk around. You’re multiple orders of magnitude — … — That’s nothing, that doesn’t solve the reliability problem.
During storms, clouds cut solar panel productivity (unless hail destroys it) and wind turbines have to shut down in high winds.
The whole interview was part of a presentation at Stanford late last year:
Cheap renewables won’t stop global warming, says Bill Gates
The interview by Arun Majumdar, co-director of Stanford Energy’s Precourt Institute for Energy, which organized the conference, can be watched here.
When financial analysts proposed rating companies on their CO2 output to drive down emissions, Gates was appalled by the idea that the climate and energy problem would be easy to solve. He asked them: “Do you guys on Wall Street have something in your desks that makes steel? Where is fertilizer, cement, plastic going to come from? Do planes fly through the sky because of some number you put in a spreadsheet?”
“The idea that we have the current tools and it’s just because these utility people are evil people and if we could just beat on them and put (solar panels) on our rooftop—that is more of a block than climate denial,” Gates said. “The ‘climate is easy to solve’ group is our biggest problem.”
If he only looked at the numbers in the climate science debate…
Jo Nova Blog
STOP THESE THINGS 
Nuclear energy is carbon-dioxide free and provides 24/7 energy at affordable costs –IF we adjust our nuclear permitting to address modular and thorium based power plants and stop scaring people with horror stories (wind turbines have killed more people than nuclear power plants).
Another risk that has occurred is in a severe storm, the panel that breaks loose becomes a dangerous object flying around.
I believe that wind and solar are bridge technology. Soon a new renewable energy will be available.
Wind and solar are a bridge to nowhere.
Yes, it’s called “New Nuclear”.
we’ll call it “clean nuke”
Where does the cheap come in on the windmill situation? Is it the companies that put them up at taxpayer expense and subsidize it so the corporations execs can become millionaires. And yes when they wear out are they going to replace them? Not on the same location. They sit their till they tumble down. And for the average person receiving this electricity, why do their utility bills keep rising? And those things are good about killing off the wildlife. I live in an area with a conservation area and they put up a big line of windmills and slipped it by the people with their voted in representatives who got dollar signs in their eyes instead of common sense. If a farmer doesn’t want it on his land he is taken to court and it is confiscated. No one really studied it but I believe in Bill Gates that he is not steering us wrong. It is made up of Corporate magnets and politicians looking to put the quick buck in their pocket. There is no relief down at the bottom rung of people. Get wise and stop them and find a solution that works..
There is nothing renewable about solar panels or wind turbines. When they wear out or become outmoded and inefficient they will have to be replaced. These “replaceables” are a problem akin to used vehicles. Where will they dispose of them? And while they were providing energy they were also taking up land where agriculture had been feeding us. They are also in competition with those who are anxious for humanity to plant millions? of new trees to sequester CO2 (at least until they die) or are cut down for lumber and other human needs.
Where is reality in all of this concern about a small increase in global temperature of less than one degree C?
I feel it is a scare for us to accept it and them to get rich.
Even the “cheap renewables” meme is a fraud. They never even factor in the cost of providing backup when their contraptions don’t work. Its crushing every economic calculus. The legacy energy system in developed economies still provides a mighty subsidy to those installations as they provide the backup free of charge. But that hits the limits now as there is not enough anymore. Its one thing to balance out 5% renewables, it’s quite a different thing to do that for 50%. Bill is a no-nonsense can-do man. That’s how he built a corporate empire paying out billions in salary in his life. That’s results – that’s value you can touch – renewable operators destroy value.
The whole concept of global warming a few degrees is stupid on the face of it. Take Minneapolis, Minnesota as an example. The average yearly temperature is 46 degF. That means that half of the time the temperature is below 46 degF and half of the time it is above 46 degF. In the winter the temperature often drops to -20 degF and in the summer the temperature often reaches 90 degF. The people in Minneapolis seem to survive and thrive in the winter as well as in the summer. If the average temperature went up a few degrees, they would not even know it. It would have no effect on their lives whatsoever. If the sea levels are rising it is at such a slow rate that no one presently alive on the earth will be able to notice it. The only reliable and cheap source of energy for the long term is nuclear energy.
I wonder what’s keeping the rest of the hippies from realizing this simple math. May I use a screen cap of this post?
Ontario Society of Professional Engineers have written of the problems with intermittent and distributed wind and solar since at least 2012. This document is from 2016. https://blog.ospe.on.ca/featured/ontario-wasted-more-than-1-billion-worth-of-clean-energy-in-2016-enough-to-power-760000-homes/
Please see the comments following, including many by anonymous posters.
Richard Mann
University of Waterloo
The link location changed. It’s now located under “advocacy” at https://ospe.on.ca/advocacy/ontario-wasted-more-than-1-billion-worth-of-clean-energy-in-2016-enough-to-power-760000-homes/ and an archive is here https://web.archive.org/web/20170815063417/https://blog.ospe.on.ca/featured/ontario-wasted-more-than-1-billion-worth-of-clean-energy-in-2016-enough-to-power-760000-homes/ and Ontario has since cancelled 758 early stage renewable contracts https://web.archive.org/web/20200307205356/https://torontosun.com/opinion/editorials/editorial-green-energy-put-us-into-the-red
Arizona needs to do this with Chevelon Canyon Butte Acres Retreat Ranch wind project that will be placed south of Winslow and straddle Route 99 with 170 turbines at 755 feet tall like Los Angeles skyscrapers on 49 square miles. https://chevelonbuttewind.horsepower.net
We nned a battery that weighs 100 kg can store 500 kWh recharge at least 1000 times and cost less than 1000 dollars.
Yes, and you can pay for it, all by yourself.
So I make that $2Billion per TWh. A day’s supply in the UK. If they last 3 years or 1,000 recycles that’s $2/3 Billion per TWh pa. Or 66¢ per KWh for energy from batteries, 2/3 of the time, without the cost of generation itself. So perhaps a $1 per KWh, when you can build zero CO2 nuclear that doesn’t need backup or has to rely on fossil for most of the actual energy at less than today’s prices. Did I get this wrong somewhere. Please correct if so. Who needs numbers?
Why not study the history of Electricity costs in every country that has experienced the Renewables rort. Prices soar and these countries have Nuclear generation as back up.
Not enough Engineers involved and too many Lawyers, Doctors and party hacks.
Reblogged this on WeatherAction News and commented:
An energy mix is about what works, not what you want to work.
Bill Gates is someone that I have been keeping an eye on regarding this issue.
If weather events are expected to become more unpredictable in future, why on earth would you build a weather dependent energy generation system? It is illogical.
Sir Richard Branson is another person that I have been keeping an eye on.
See below.
Quote…
4th October 2018
Today the aviation industry took a landmark step towards making commercially-viable sustainable aviation fuel a reality – thanks to a world first flight by Virgin Atlantic and LanzaTech, supported by long-term partner Boeing.
The first batch of LanzaTech jet fuel was used on a commercial flight for the very first time – Virgin Atlantic’s VS16 flight from Orlando to London Gatwick, operated by a Boeing 747 aircraft. Passengers on the historic flight were welcomed by a familiar face on arrival as the airline’s founder Sir Richard Branson marshalled the aircraft into stand. This flight follows hot on the heels of a £410K UK government Future Fuels for Flight and Freight grant to determine the feasibility of building a 40-50million US gallon jet fuel plant in Britain.
Read more here…
http://www.lanzatech.com/virgin-atlantic-lanzatech-celebrate-revolutionary-sustainable-fuel-project-takes-flight/
On Feb 13, 2018: The judge dismissed all charges in the lawsuit brought against Dr Tim Ball by BC Green Party leader Andrew Weaver. It is a great victory for free speech.
‘The Deliberate Corruption of Climate Science’.
“Human Caused Global Warming”, ‘The Biggest Deception in History’.
https://www.technocracy.news/dr-tim-ball-on-climate-lies-wrapped-in-deception-smothered-with-delusion/
http://www.drtimball.com
Thank you Professor Ball for all of this information. You are a real educator on this subject. Your contribution is vitally important.
This deception needs to be fully exposed.
I hope readers here will share your videos widely.
There is no proof that the Globe is warming at other than a normal rate (since the ice age ended) nor any superior technology to solve it even if it was true. All of this – ALL of it – is pure political baloney producing only mildly warmer air due to hyperventilating politicians and journalists. CO2 is plant food. Peak oil is a myth. The problem is that we have no problem and that is a serious problem for all the fools who love global hysteria and centralized “solutions”.
For the innocent men, women and children who have been harmed by this failed experiment, it is more than being ‘jerked around’ , Bill. This genocidal ideology must be stopped. Turbines within 20 km from peoples’ homes need to be turned off and people who have suffered the cumulative and irreversible harm must be somehow compensated. How does money compensate a person whose nervous system has been bombarded by infrasound and whose vestibular system has been damaged?
The larger the market segments relying on unpredictable sources like sun and wind gets, the worse the situation gets! Sailing the tide and slow moving water is the way to go!
Possibly Step One on a return to commonsense?
It’s surely Václav Havel, former President Czech Republic, that Gates is referencing
No, Vaclav Smil.
A Critical Look at Claims for Green Technologies
Green technologies are not yet proved, affordable, or deployable—but even if they were, it would still take them generations to solve our environmental problems
By Vaclav Smil
https://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/environment/a-critical-look-at-claims-for-green-technologies
Reblogged this on Climate Collections and commented:
Clarification: The video (0:44) of the Gates interview includes the quotable quote: “Let’s not JOKE around. You’re multiple orders of magnitude…” (emphasis added).
No, he says ‘let’s not jerk around’.
Just hope Bill Gates is putting his money where his mouth is and investing in the development of small molten salt nuclear reactors. Lots of them dotted about instead of those monolithic monsters we have today seems a good idea.
A bit like the PC revolution. Different technology.
Need to slay the CO2 dragon first.
Bill Gates has been promoting nuclear power for quite some time now, as has most everyone else with more than a cursory understanding of the matter. He has put $100 million of his own money into TerraPower, a company developing a next-gen nuclear reactor. He has also made investments in renewable energy as well, primarily storage technologies to be used in conjunction with renewable energy.
Thanks stevenjb1. Good to hear that.
Reblogged this on Climatism and commented:
BILL GATES, not afraid to break ranks with the cult of climate groupthink, calling out the ruinous obsession with fashionable UNreliables – wind and solar ‘power’.
“Do you guys on Wall Street have something in your desks that makes steel? Where is fertilizer, cement, plastic going to come from? Do planes fly through the sky because of some number you put in a spreadsheet?”
“Climate change and the 75% problem
By Bill Gates
| October 17, 2018
Quick: Think of some inventions that help fight climate change.
What came to mind first? I bet you thought of solar panels and wind turbines. In my experience, that’s what people point to when they think about reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
They’re not wrong. Renewables are getting cheaper and many countries are committing to rely more on them and less on fossil fuels for their electricity needs. That’s good news, at least in places that get a lot of sunlight or wind. Everyone who cares about climate change should hope we continue to de-carbonize the way we generate electricity.
I wish that were enough to solve the problem. Unfortunately, it isn’t….”
Gates is a sensible person now???? How things change!
https://www.gatesnotes.com/Energy/My-plan-for-fighting-climate-change
If wind and solar are cheap, why the need for hundreds of billions in subsidies, cut the subsidies and no one invests in either.
Reblogged this on Tallbloke's Talkshop and commented:
Quite right, but not what climate-obsessed politicians and the ‘Greenblob’ crowd want to hear.
Reblogged this on ajmarciniak.
London to a brick you will NEVER see this interview replayed on the ABC. Such an evil denier.
Unfortunately I don’t think Angus Taylor will be able to underwrite new coal fired generation before the election. Time is of the essence and with so many variables such as the snowy hydro scheme, who would invest?
The Australia Institute and other radicals are primed for a High court challenge.
Too little too late from the Libs, Turnbull has all but destroyed this once great party.