We Don’t Need No Stinking Giant Fans

Alternative Subsidy 58 Comments

Follow the money.

[A]bout $66 billion was spent building wind and solar infrastructure in Texas in the years before the blackouts, yet all that spending was worth next to nothing when the grid was teetering on the edge of collapse during the early morning hours of February 15. For several hours, there was no solar production, and of the 31,000 megawatts of wind capacity installed in ERCOT, only about 5,400 megawatts, or roughly 17% of that capacity, was available when the grid operator was shedding load to prevent the state’s grid from going dark.

58 Replies to “We Don’t Need No Stinking Giant Fans”

    1. there won’t be any lawsuits of substance, because ERCOT’s enabling legislation gives it immunity from prosecution. They did not, as Nick Taleb puts it, have any ‘skin in the game’. They made money when times were good, and when times were bad, you got the short end of the stick not them.

  2. The ones making money off the taxpayers are General Electric who makes the bird grinders and the contractors who install them.

    A solar panel salesman was in the comments. He claimed his $20,000 solar panels will last 40 years making “free” electricity. He is so full of shit that even his comment stunk.

    1. Well he is correct, a solar panel, only reduces it’s capacity per year on average by 3%….. In theory after 40 years, you’ll still have a peak output of 2kw on a 10kw system….

      /as long as you are running the test in a laboratory, under ideal conditions, with no extra losses, and no thermal stressing….

      1. Can I see it producing any power in the dark?
        No? Damn those fossil fuel using generators.
        When you have those expensive huge 2volt batteries, they too have a very small self life and need replacement.
        I personally was never at all impressed with this system that needs replacement before you actually paid for it originally.
        Add into this the lines in the ground heat recovery system which also is useless as the most expensive part of the system needs replacement at 8 to 10 years.

      3. My daughter had to reshingle. They charged an extra 2 grand to tear out her 15 grand of solar panels that weren’t yet paid for. This is the daughter that bought into another popular swindle – yep – a time share condo. She votes NDP because she thinks she’s poor – 2 working professionals.

        1. Rooftop solar is an idiot’s game. Anyone who is serious about it uses one of them rotating platforms, they’re cheaper than rooftop installation, and more efficient. Grid tie-in is a waste of time, but in remote areas, when they wanna charge you 10+ grand for a grid hookup, you’re better off, as a homeowner, to opt for a solar setup with a bit of wind.

    2. Don’t forget the stock market promoters who flogged this one almost as hard as in the early days of dot-coms. They made money, but their shareholders not so much.

  3. If people haven’t figured out the true cost and risks of wind and solar by now then they never will. Look at the electricity cost increases in Germany, California, Ontario. Look at the amplified grid failure risks. Reliable baseload power isn’t optional and wind and solar are nowhere near being able to provide that standard of reliability.

    I’m fine with the current energy mix but I would phase out coal plants as they reach the end of their life cycle. The only remaining reliable options for a province that has 30C plus summers and -30C plus winters is natural gas, hydro and nuclear. Reliable power is a life or death issue in our winters – we simply can’t survive for days without electricity. Because of that, I have a backup generator because, well, the odds of politicians getting this right causes me night terrors.

    1. Wind and solar should NEVER be considered to be part of base power. NEVER! At best it is “boutique” power.

      1. Establishment shill. Wind, solar and biofuel is fine in rural areas, on a micro-scale, just no good for industry and cities. Are you and Oz the same guy?

        1. Wind, solar, and bio-fuel can power your rural area in about the same manner that fairies can fly you to the moon. The only thing powering these pipe-dreams is taxpayer money. And the reason it is moving is so that the usual suspects can strip off their cut on the way by.

        2. Please sell everything and move 30 miles into the middle of nowhere in North Alberta, and experiment with your life first, with your precious wind and solar. Enjoy those -30 nights, and no cheating with firewood or propane either.

          See ya back in town by the end of November after your pipes are frozen

    2. Try NS at 16.3 cents per kwhr. We have a bilion dollars worth of windmills, according to Emera’s annual report they produce 4% of our electricity annually. We have a coal seam running from Springhill to Glace Bay, Cape Breton, probably close to 350km long. Two mines have blown up in spectacular fashion killing dozens of miners. We could drill and frac that, have gas for hundreds of years plus export, solve all our economic woes, but we can’t frac, because success is no fun when you would rather whine and depend on government.

      1. Coal, the energy of the future when all else has been proven useless and or consumed. Yes, it will be used, as it will be necessary for the survival of the human race and those who are intelligent enough and wish to survive will use it.

  4. The Chair of ERCOT at the time of the failure was Sally Talberg. Her bio at the time on the ERCOT website said “Prior to the MPSC, Talberg worked as a senior consultant at Public Sector Consultants, most notably co-leading the development of Michigan Saves, a nonprofit green bank that has financed over $200 million in energy efficiency projects. She also helped staff the state’s wind zone board and offshore wind council.”

    That is the root of the problem. The “green” nonsense. By the way, Talberg lives in Michigan…not Texas.

  6. How about turning to Canada?

    There is a way to look at the Liberals 40% reduction target in Green House Gases (GHGs) that doesn’t target sectors like transportation, agriculture, food production, manufacturing, mining, forestry or any other key energy consuming sectors of the country . It is to look at a reduction in the population in order to meet the Liberals target.

    2005 Population of Canada —————————————> 32,164,313 Canadians
    2005 GHG Emissions ————————————————> 730 MT CO2 Eq
    2005 Emissions per 1 million Canadians ———————> 22.8125 MT C02 Eq

    2021 GHG Reduction Target —————————————> 40%
    2005 Population of Canada —————————————> 32,164,313 Canadians
    2005 Population Reduction Equivalent ————————> 12,865,725 Canadians
    2005 Population at 40% target level —————————> 19,298, 588 Canadians

    2021 Population of Canada —————————————> 38,008,005 Canadians
    2021 Population of Canada target ——————————> 19,298,588 Canadians
    2021 Population Reduction to reach target ——————> 18,709,417 Canadians

    So, if my math is accurate it will take a 49% reduction in Canada’s 2021 population or 18.7 million people being disappeared in order to achieve the Liberals 40% reduction in GHGs. Tell me I am wrong.

    Isn’t this what the ‘Great Reset’ is really targeting?

    1. If the population “disappeared” is required, we should start with politicians and their sycophants. My guess is that would get rid of most of the problems we face today.

      1. Yep. Especially the ones who like to foment hatred between conservatives, like, say, rural easterners and Albertans.

    2. Except the idiots running this country into the ground keep importing third worlders to replace those of us who aren’t reliably voting for leftist crap, even though we don’t need more population. I think that kind of contradicts the idea. But then again, the Wuhan Flu and its variants, plus whatever comes next from that horror-laden shitshow called the People Republic of China, plus an endless stream of untested vaccines will likely keep the population growth down.

    3. Bang on. But they’ll do it by making everyone poor and dependent instead, airlines will be gone because flying will be banned, cars in cities will be banned, in other words life will be banned. Blackie has big plans, we now have military checkpoints in NS preventing you from leaving your community. Most citizens are so paralyzed with fear from pandemic porn from government and on TV that they won’t even complain. People don’t even make eye contact, reminds me of Cuba.

    4. Well, as far as population reduction is concerned, that cannot be done by importing hundreds of thousands of third world welfare seekers.

  7. Wind and solar are great on the micro-scale. Of course, the PTBs do not want individual households to have total control of their own energy use. I think using the grid for industry and cities is good, but let rural households use wind, solar and biofuel all they like, instead of pressing harsh particulate matter regs on them. We hate you city folk who think meat comes from a freezer and energy comes from an electrical outlet, and just want to be left alone, maybe sell you clowns some food, energy and maybe some local artisinal artwork from time to time.

    1. Wind and solar are great on the micro-scale … horse shit …. the only person I know with a wind install said it was a joke ( just west of Calgary) too intermittent and unreliable.
      As for solar it is fine at noon in June but electricity production in December sucks donkey dick.

      1. They make these things called batteries, some of them are pretty good. Yes, wind and solar will not heat or air-condition your home in Canada, nor will it run your house lighting and a pool pump, not enough power there. But lighting and refrigeration of food/water can be done pretty easily, unless you’re willing to use a fan instead of air conditioning. (snowflake). I guess it depends on your priorities, and how reluctant you are to buy into a monopoly and put yourself at the dependence of others. For myself, I’d spend an extra 10 grand on wind and solar before and batteries I’d spend it on a grid tie in, I just wouldn’t have a Porsche in the garage, unless I was independently wealthy.

        1. You are spouting utter crap. There is no reason to use an expensive and unreliable source of power when cheaper and cleaner alternatives exist. It is less expensive to by double A batteries to power a remote installation rather than put a solar cell on it.

          Solar power is not free. The panel must be maintained and replaced and they are expensive. They also way out in front when it comes to deaths per kW-hr produced due to installers falling off roofs and electrocutions.

          1. LOL. Solar panels last in space, under highly radioactive conditions, for decades, and that’s stuff from the 1970s. Again, if you know how to use batteries, you know that the TCO of LiFePo is much lower than alkaline, lipo, lead-acid car batteries or li-ion batteries, not that I expect you to know the difference between each. Then there are mini-split heat pumps, etc, you can go a long way with what tech we have now, but keep shilling for energy monopolies like the one I have to put up with in Ontario, you weirdo.

        2. YW, your solar panels and wind turbines cannot be built without fossil fuels, one of them being coal.

          1. Correct. I in no way endorse or approve of the war on fossil fuels being waged by the left. I merely maintain that wind and solar can and do have some legit applications. Grid power isn’t one of them.

  8. Although solar energy has something ” magical” about it, it is not a very efficient way of obtaining/producing energy.

    Your car ( running on petrol) does not stop working on cloudy days

    Your car does not stop working at night because it is dark.

    The solar panel that would give your car a couple hundred horsepower ( as the petrol engine does ) would be about as large as a football field ( I did not do any calculation, it is a quick and rough guess, but i could find the exact numbers and i can garantee that the solar panel would be gigantic )

    Solar energy may be cool and may be fun, and may be relatively clean, it is a ” free gift” from the sun, but it is very inefficient.

    1. Solar is about 100w/m^3, or 1 horsepower per 8m^3. 100 HP would be about 10000 square meters, or 100×100 meters, so your educated guess is right on the money.
      Now, keep in mind, fossil fuels is just old solar energy that got sequestered into the ground, it is finite. I think the reason we have fossil fuel is to give us time to come up with better fuel, like nuclear, or maybe even fusion. We still have a few hundred years of fossil fuel left, at least, and as fossil fuel becomes more expensive, other forms of fuel will become competitive. As usual, the free market will solve this, after all, it is the thermodynamically perfect solution to any and all energy issues of complex dissipative structures like ourselves, whether we like it or not.

      2. the US has coal reserves equal to about 300 years at current levels of consumption… and coal can be converted into liquid fuels, there are several refineries dedicated to the process, which has been well known since world war 2.

        Fracking also increase the amount of recoverable oil and natural gas.

        anti-energy zealots aren’t interested in allowing you to continue to use fuels, or owning a car, or allowing you to move around.

        1. JD. Agreed. As far as energy to keep our civilization growing is concerned, we’ve got centuries worth, its just that Frankfurt School cultural Marxists are still convinced that western civilization must be utterly destroyed before it can become the commie utopia, and those are the people in control. Even the Stalinist Soviet commies weren’t intent on destroying, they were simple looters.

      3. YeahWell…: You have made errors in the above post. Starting with your units. Insolation is about 1,000 watts per square meter at the surface of the earth on a bright sunny day with the receiver oriented perpendicular to the light and 100% efficiency. One horsepower is 746 watts. An accessible solar cell technology that is not prohibitively expensive is about 8% efficient. One hundred horsepower will require 100 * 746 / 1000 / 0.08 = 933 square meters. You can then start dividing by all the other factors that are involved: incident angle, cloud cover, time of year, time of day, cost of batteries, snow, dirt, condition of the cells, storage efficiency, conversion efficiency, second order energy costs for cleaning and replacing the cells, and transmission losses for distributed sources of power.

        Watts per cubic meter is not a thing in this context. The guess above was not educated it was a guess. We have millions of years of proven, probable, and possible reserves of fossil fuels and that is presuming we don’t figure out more efficient ways of using them. Or shift over to nukes as soon as possible.

        I am going to be charitable and assume you meant 100 wats per square meter which is not completely nuts although it ignores all the other losses. I note below that you noticed the order of magnitude error.

  9. I did the numbers.

    1 horsepower = 745.7 watt

    my Kia Forte has a modest 156 horsepower ( most cars these days have much more than that )

    156 x 745.7 watt = 116,392 watt

    I would need a solar panel that can produce 116,392 watt to get 156 horsepower from the sun ( only on sunny days of course )

    on average solar panels give 15 watt per square foot

    116,392 / 15 = 7759

    we would need a solar panel of 7759 square feet.

    that solar panel could be 10 feet wide by 775 feet long or could be 100 long feet by 77 feet wide …ok not as big as a football field but would that fit on the top of a car?…really?

    A Ford F 150 has between 300 and 400 horsepower, its solar panel would thus be at least twice as big as the one for my Kia Forte.

    Need I say more?

    Solar panels as ” magical” as they are are very VERY inefficient.

    1. Pretty much the same efficiency as plants, which is OK for a little upstart bunch of divinely-inspired apes. Still, no good for a modern, industrialized society with factories, injection-molding machines, steel smelters, etc. We have a few hundred years of fossil fuels left to figure out another energy source, so DON’T PANIC!

  10. Hey America please go full wind and solar. The rest of the world would like your manufacturing .

    1. I think rural folk should go wind and solar, more independence for them, and more grid power for the factories.

    2. Keeerist. The Turd/Whitmer woke-a-thon that we’ll be lucky to be treated to.
      Dad, may he RIP, was right when he said “Roll on Armageddon.”

      1. Actually this is a Liberal on Liberal shit fight. I don’t root for winners here.
        That smug Fk Mayor Bradley went the extra mile to denigrate Trump at every turn.
        Now he can do his standup routine to the few thousand people who will lose their jobs.

        1. I kinda think that these shitfights are worth going to war against. The Great “STFU” wars or whatever, the one where the people say “fuck off and leave us alone to do business!”, if we left them alone, it would be easy to squeeze a good life outta them.

    4. Mayor Mike is a dyed in the wool Liberal. He also likes to over imbibe on a regular basis.
      A few years ago he ranted about surveillance balloons spying on us and got the Selfridge MANG base from flying their Warthogs over the city.
      Go figure.

  13. Actual users of wind and solar for their electrical power needs all learn this lesson.
    The way you use electricity changes.
    No longer are you the master,who flips a switch to accomplish a task as you need when you want.

    Now you are the servant,you wait until the conditions are suitable,before you can even start a high power job,if the sky clouds up or the wind slows down or blows too hard,you cancel your plans..
    And high power can be something as basic as a Skilsaw.
    Or,when you need reliable stable power for a certain period of time..You fire up a generator before you even begin..

    And then there are those batteries.
    Education part 2.
    Lead Acid Batteries,still the most robust,safe and reliable..are nasty house guests,they need protected from freezing and overheat,they outgas toxic fumes and they need significant amperages for extended periods of time to properly charge..
    Serve their needs or be ready to spend large replacing them much sooner than the salesman told yah.
    Slave.

  15. The situation in Australia this week – (link in original)

    ‘Sometimes I wonder how to get this message across, because if more people knew this was the case, then I’m sure that some pretty stern questions would be asked.

    Take a look at the image at this link. This is total the total power consumption across the AEMO coverage area, for yesterday, 28April2021. (and that’s all of Australia, minus WA) The black line across the top shows the total power consumption. The green colour at the bottom of the image (Look closely now, and squint a bit) shows the contribution from wind generation. That’s the TOTAL contribution from wind generation, just three percent of all power generation from every source. The average across the day was just 700MW per hour, with the low at 288MW. That’s a Nameplate of 8132MW and a daily operational Capacity Factor of 8.6%, so less than one in ten of those (around) 4100+ individual wind towers had their blades turning over.”

    And

    “Incidentally, and with respect to that Nameplate of 8132MW.

    For more than 800 days now, I have been collecting the data, and the highest wind generation over that time was 5310MW, for ONE five minute recording period. That’s a CF of 65% ….. for FIVE MINUTES in 800DAYS.”

    Lemon laws for renewables!

    https://joannenova.com.au/2021/04/thursday-open-thread-48/#comment-2424106

  17. The right: “Solar and wind energy are tools used by the left to screw us over, so the tools themselves must be evil!”
    The left: “Guns are tools used by bad guys to murder people, so the tools themselves must be evil!”

    Both sides have lost all capacity for critical thinking, ergo, the west is lost.

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