Relying on Weather-Dependent Wind & Sunshine-Dependent Solar? Then Stock Up On Candles

One of the greatest lies being told is that we’re well on our way to an all wind and sun powered future. Pitched as the ‘inevitable transition’, the 100% wind and solar story overlooks at least two inconvenient facts: sunset and calm weather. And when one or other or both of those phenomena materialise, the […]

Why Intermittent Wind & Solar Will Never Amount to Serious Power Sources

Calm weather, sunset and the impossibility of economically storing electricity at grid scale, render wind and solar practically useless. For every MW of wind and solar capacity there has to be an equal MW of dispatchable generation capacity somewhere in the system, to allow the grid to function without total collapse. The inherent and chaotic […]

‘Inevitable Transition’: Get Ready For the Insane Cost of Attempting to Rely on Wind & Solar

Want rocketing power prices and an unreliable supply? Then, subsidised wind and solar is just made for you. The very point of subsidies to wind and solar is to knock reliable, dispatchable generation sources, out of the game. In wind and solar obsessed South Australia, that’s already occurred, with a vengeance: it blew up its […]

Ships Ahoy! Giant Diesel-Fuelled Ship Engines ‘Solution’ For Australia’s Renewable Energy Crisis

  Australia’s obsession with chaotically intermittent wind and solar has left it with a power pricing and supply calamity. It’s a disaster that was as predictable, as it was avoidable. To date, the Federal Liberal/National Coalition’s feeble attempts to resolve it provide a study in practised inertia, mixed with a series of pointless Band-Aid ‘solutions’. […]

Zero Return: Intermittent Wind & Solar Devour More Energy Than They Can Ever Return

Sunset and calm weather have been with us since the dawn of time; wind and solar power have existed for barely a generation, and only as a result of massive subsidies. The notion that modern economies can operate around the vagaries of the weather and time of day is, of course, patent nonsense. The factory […]

Solar Totally Eclipsed: Sunny Queensland Powered By Ever-Reliable Coal-Fired Plants

  Despite the hype, the true contribution of solar power to Australia’s grid remains trivial and especially so from sunset to sunup. Oh, almost forgot, cloudy and inclement weather makes a pretty fair dent in solar output, too. Queensland is renowned as the Sunshine State. But, even there, the massive increase in subsidised solar panels […]

Parasitic Power: Intermittent Wind & Solar Take More From Power Grid Than They Ever Add

Applying scarce resources so that the benefits always outweigh the costs is rational, but subsidised wind and solar will never fit that bill. Putting aside the minerals and the energy required to convert those minerals that is embodied in solar panels and wind turbines, it’s the fact that – no matter how much wind and […]

Fake News: Tasmania’s 200% Renewable Energy Vanity Project, 100% Dependent on Coal-Fired Power from Victoria

  The renewable energy zealot is all care and no responsibility. Claims that the world can run on sunshine and breezes and become “100% renewable” have been outdone by Tasmania with its claim that it will soon be 200% renewable. But, dig a little deeper, and the 200% claim is just as hollow as the […]

Lone Star Losers: Wind Power Collapses During Texan Heatwave & Power Prices Rocket

  No one cares much about electricity, until they don’t have it. For the best part of a century, proles in the industrialised world have enjoyed electricity on the same terms as running water; ubiquitous, cheap and always available. Infrastructure interruptions during electrical storms and wild weather aside, electricity has been generated and delivered on […]

Dancin’ With the Devil: 100% Wind & Solar Targets = Guaranteed Economic & Social Catastrophe

Delusional and dangerous, sums up those peddling 100% wind and solar targets. No country on earth has ever powered itself entirely using sunshine and breezes. And no country ever will. Sunset and calm weather are real things. On the other hand, mega-batteries are a mixture of myth and nonsense. At the margins, technically possible. But, […]