Cluttering the World with White Elephants

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One of the biggest white elephants ever to have been trotted out, the move toward renewables intended but not able to reduce CO2 emissions, is increasingly faced with evidence, conveniently ignored by politics, especially in "green" Germany, that increased CO2 emissions are not only NOT A PROBLEM but in fact a vast NET IMPROVEMENT.

But even by the misguided standards adduced in their favour, the main energy sources in the service of the renewable fad demonstrably fail:

The wind parks do not fulfil ‘sustainable’ objectives. They cost more fuel than they save and they cause no CO2 saving, in the contrary they increase our environmental ‘foot print’.

A decision to invest thousands of millions Euros in the construction of windparks ‘to save fossil fuel and to reduce CO2 emission’ is irresponsible. There are no savings, THERE IS LOSS! 

The source.

Consider more evidence of the quixotic waste of resources and the damaging effects brought about by renewables:

The unspoken truth about renewables was succinctly summarized in a 2012 Los Angeles Times analysis :

“As more solar and wind generators come online, … the demand will rise for more backup power from fossil fuel plants.”

The full article, entitled “Rise in renewable energy will require more use of fossil fuels”  also points out that wind turbines often produce a tiny fraction (1 percent?) of their claimed potential, meaning the gap must be filled by fossil fuels:

Wind provided just 33 megawatts of power statewide in the midafternoon, less than 1% of the potential from wind farms capable of producing 4,000 megawatts of electricity.

As is true on many days in California when multibillion-dollar investments in wind and solar energy plants are thwarted by the weather, the void was filled by gas-fired plants like the Delta Energy Center.

One of the hidden costs of solar and wind power — and a problem the state is not yet prepared to meet — is that wind and solar energy must be backed up by other sources, typically gas-fired generators. As more solar and wind energy generators come online, fulfilling a legal mandate to produce one-third of California’s electricity by 2020, the demand will rise for more backup power from fossil fuel plants.

Observational analysis from Michigan points out that much of the power generation thought to be attributed to wind actually came from backup sources, or fossil fuels:

“More than half the electric generation nominally credited to wind power is actually produced by fossil fuels, mostly natural gas.”

Analysis from a recently published resource management paper suggests that overall CO2 emissions will actually double in the next 16 years (by 2032) in Canada (Ontario) as more more wind and solar capacity is added.  Wind and solar require reliable backup when the Sun isn’t shining and/or the wind isn’t blowing…and fossil fuel energies (natural gas, coal) are the reliable backup(s) of choice.

Why Will Emissions Double as We Add Wind and Solar Plants?  [pg. 15]

Wind and Solar require flexible backup generation.  Nuclear is too inflexible to backup renewables without expensive engineering changes to the reactors.  Flexible electric storage is too expensive at the moment. Consequently natural gas provides the backup for wind and solar in North America. When you add wind and solar you are actually forced to reduce nuclear generation to make room for more natural gas generation to provide flexible backup.

Ontario currently produces electricity at less than 40 grams of CO2 emissions/kWh. Wind and solar with natural gas backup produces electricity at about 200 grams of CO2 emissions/kWh. Therefore adding wind and solar to Ontario’s grid drives CO2 emissions higher.

From 2016 to 2032 as Ontario phases out nuclear capacity to make room for wind and solar, CO2 emissions will double (2013 LTEP data).  In Ontario, with limited economic hydro and expensive storage, it is mathematically impossible to achieve low CO2 emissions at reasonable electricity prices without nuclear generation.

Scientists Increasingly Conclude Global-Scale Renewables-Driven Power Supply Will Never Happen

Scientists have increasingly weighed in on the vacuousness of the current emphasis on renewable energy generation.  For example…
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Solar power is a “non-sustainable energy sink” and “will not help in any way to replace the fossil fuel” even though “many people believe renewable energy sources to be capable of substituting fossil or nuclear energy.”
Ferroni and Hopkirk, 2016

Abstract: Many people believe renewable energy sources to be capable of substituting fossil or nuclear energy. However there exist very few scientifically sound studies, which apply due diligence to substantiating this impression. … The main reasons are due to the fact that on one hand, solar electricity is very material-intensive, labour-intensive and capital-intensive and on the other hand the solar radiation exhibits a rather low power density.

Conclusion: [A]n electrical supply system based on today’s PV [photovoltaic] technologies cannot be termed an energy source, but rather a non-sustainable energy sink … [I]t has become clear that photovoltaic energy at least will not help in any way to replace the fossil fuel.

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For wind and solar, the “energy return on energy invested falls, and environmental costs rise” as more wind and solar power capacity is added.
Moriarty and Honnery, 2016

Highlights: We argue it is unlikely that RE [renewable energy] can meet existing global energy use.

The most important RE [renewable energy] sources, wind and solar energy, are also intermittent, necessitating major energy storage as these sources increase their share of total energy supply. We show that estimates for the technical potential of RE [renewable energy] vary by two orders of magnitude, and argue that values at the lower end of the range must be seriously considered, both because their energy return on energy invested falls, and environmental costs rise, with cumulative output.

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The “numbers just don’t add up” to curtail world temperatures with wind and solar, and thus our current efforts “will almost surely fail.”
Jones and Warner, 2016

Efforts to curtail world temps will almost surely fail

The Texas A&M researchers modelled the projected growth in global population and per capita energy consumption, as well as the size of known reserves of oil, coal and natural gas, and greenhouse gas emissions to determine just how difficult it will be to achieve the less-than-2 degree Celsius warming goal.  “It would require rates of change in our energy infrastructure and energy mix that have never happened in world history and that are extremely unlikely to be achieved,” explains Jones.   “Just considering wind power, we found that it would take an annual installation of 485,000 5-megawatt wind turbines by 2028. The equivalent of about 13,000 were installed in 2015. That’s a 37-fold increase in the annual installation rate in only 13 years to achieve just the wind power goal,” adds Jones.  Similar expansion rates are needed for other renewable energy sources.  “To even come close to achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement, 50 percent of our energy will need to come from renewable sources by 2028, and today it is only 9 percent, including hydropower. For a world that wants to fight climate change, the numbers just don’t add up to do it.”

The source.

Do not forget, even if we managed to reduce the carbon footprint of humans to nil, climate change and global temperature alterations would be unaffected. Firstly, under the theory that CO2 serves as a driver of temperatures (which it clearly does not), it is preposterous to assume that only the 3% of global CO2 emissions produced by humans matter, whereas the remaining 97% produced by other sources do not. Secondly, science suggests that temperatures and climate changes are affected far more significantly by a complex mix of other factors, among which CO2 is negligible, and certainly not the main driver as suggested in the mythology underlying the move toward renewables.