Simply Staggering: Power Users Bear The True Cost of Subsidised Wind and Solar

Every state or country that ramps up wind and solar capacity ends up with rocketing power prices and an unreliable grid – no exceptions. Press members of the wind and sun cult for an example of the alternative outcome and they’ll quickly deflect and change the subject, keep pressing and then you’ll get ranting about wind and solar being the only solution to our imminent climate crisis or emergency or some such infantile hyperbole.

Getting to the true and simply staggering cost of subsidised wind and solar takes some doing. Isaac Orr and Mitch Rolling have been doing so in the US for some time, as John Hinderaker outlines below.

The True Cost of Wind and Solar
Powerline
John Hinderaker
3 April 2024

Some of the most sophisticated work on energy in the country is being done by Isaac Orr and Mitch Rolling of Center of the American Experiment. Here, Isaac explains in understandable terms why the supposed costs of wind and solar projects that you see reported in the press, and alleged by “green” advocates, are always wildly off base:

[T]hese claims, which are already tenuous due to rising wind and solar costs, ignore virtually all of the hidden real-world costs associated with building and operating wind turbines and solar panels while also keeping the grid reliable, including:

• • Additional transmission expenses to connect wind and solar to the grid;
  • Additional costs associated with Green Plating the grid;
  • Additional property taxes because there is more property to tax;
  • “Load balancing costs,” which include the cost of backup generators and batteries;
  • Overbuilding and curtailment costs incurred when wind and solar are overbuilt to meet demand during periods of low wind and solar generation and are turned off during periods of higher output to avoid overloading the grid;
  • These comparisons also ignore the cost differential between low-cost, existing power plants and new power plants.

Add all of these factors together, and you have a recipe for soaring electricity prices due to the addition of new wind, solar, and battery storage on the electric grid.

This chart shows how expensive wind and solar energy are if you include all the costs:

There is much, much more at the link. Wind and solar developments have been sold on the basis of financial claims that are outright fraudulent. We can hope that one of these days, “greens” will be held accountable in court.
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