pe’s Downward Energy Spiral // John Hinderaker
The European Union has pledged to go “green”. This means that they will close reliable nuclear and fossil fuel plants and rely on wind and solar for their energy needs. Liberals promise us that solar and wind will bring cost savings. They must be subsidized, which is obvious. Europeans are also moving to replace internal combustion engines with electric vehicles as part of their “green” agenda. The electricity will come from solar and wind.
But there’s a catch! The battery is the essence of an electric car. However, you cannot produce car-sized batteries here in Europe. This is because it requires a lot more energy to make batteries.
Volkswagen, the German carmaker, has now stated that it is “practically impossible” to produce the batteries they require domestically.
According to Thomas Schafer, Volkswagen CEO, this is because he wrote on LinkedIn this week, “Unless we manage energy prices in Germany or Europe quickly and reliably,” that investments in energy-intensive production and new battery cell factories in Germany, and the EU, will be practically impossible.
Why is energy so expensive across Europe? They are closing down reliable power plants and spending large amounts of money on solar and wind installations that produce very little electricity. This is a form of reductio which exposes the folly in the entire “green” venture. If solar and wind were truly cheap energy sources, liberals claim, it wouldn’t be prohibitively costly to make batteries for “green” cars.
We made this post by Francis Menton a “pick” earlier today. Francis has a book on energy storage coming out, which is the fatal flaw, and will inevitably bring down the entire “green” project. His post also includes this:
Homewood estimates that the UK’s average electricity consumption at this time of the year is 840 GWh. This would mean that 35 GWh per hour of the day would be required. The UK’s solar generation facilities have a total capacity of 14 GW. This would mean that if the solar facilities were to produce at their full capacity for 24 hours, they would have produced 336 GWh or 40% of the UK’s daily usage. It’s November, after all. The days are short and there are many clouds in the UK. How much did the solar power plants actually produce today? Here’s the chart:
The peak generation of the solar panels for the day was 1.33 GW at noon. This is less than 4% of the average usage. The total production from the solar panel was 5.46 GWh or 0.65% of the usage for the entire day. Peak electricity demand occurs in the morning and evening. The UK’s solar panels produced nothing during those times. They produced nothing between midnight and 8 AM, and then at 4 PM.
How is the UK going to get enough electricity from solar panels in winter?
It isn’t. The truth is that the U.K. uses approximately 840 GWh per day of electricity. Solar panels produced a paltry 5.46 GWh despite their 336GWh “rated capacity”. Liberals often talk about “rated capacity” when promoting solar and wind, but the actual productivity of any solar or wind installation is only a fraction, in this case, a tiny fraction.
The “green” structure is rapidly falling apart. We can only pray that it will crumble quickly enough to save the liberal West and its people from social and economic disaster.
