‘Today is the age of wisdom, also the age of foolishness’ (paraphrased from Charles Dickens, “A Tale of Two Cities”).

“It’s gonna be cold, it’s gonna be grey, and it’s gonna last you for the rest of your life” (Bill Murray, Groundhog Day, 1993). 

Today, we have achieved the highest level of human knowledge in history, but that high level has also created a certain intellectual ignorance due to the enormity of ‘knowing all there is to know’.   Specialization is occurring in narrowing fields of study, forcing society to rely on others for correct information.   Under this system, the potential exists for gross misrepresentation to the public.   And nowhere is this misrepresentation more rampant than in the field of climate change.   Those experts daring to dissent from a forced consensus are ridiculed, restricted from publishing, and threatened with their jobs or prison.       

The climate science of today reminds me of a dog chasing its tail.   Two-thirds of science articles in the years leading up to 1975 warned of a coming ice age.   Solar and wind facilities are being constructed on 50-350 times as much land as traditional power sources, negatively impacting the environment while supposedly trying to save it.   Electricity demand is expected to increase 60% to 80% by 2050, yet we’re mothballing our most dependable power sources.   Around the world there are artificial, pumped storage hydro systems that use more electricity than they create.   Scientists discuss geoengineering the amount of sunlight reaching Earth, while promoting solar facilities that would be even less efficient if we did.   Global winds slowed 10% in the last few decades, which makes wind turbines less efficient.   We talk of overpopulation problems, when the world is actually on a depopulation trend that will threaten business markets and jobs.  

Auto manufacturers are being required to manufacture EV’s for a public that generally doesn’t want them because, as Henry Payne explained, an “EV owner must endure garage parking upgrades, long waits at charging stations, [and] range anxiety, [so] their enthusiasm for ownership cools”.   However, the necessary power infrastructure to support EV’s and increased air conditioning needs is being dismantled.   This latter problem is the focus of this paper.   

Each succeeding generation in our history has benefitted from improved living conditions, but we’re now standing at the edge of a giant precipice, threatening to destroy all of our successes.   Either we bridge it or our society tumbles.

Great Britain is illustrative of proceeding haphazardly toward a renewable economy, something the present administration hopes to emulate.   Great Britain is legally required to meet a “net zero” (discussed later) energy reduction by 2050.   According to Iain Aitken, abandoning any possibility of nuclear power plants would mean that the countryside would need to be plastered with wind and solar facilities to avoid importing outside energy.   This would necessitate numerous changes in personal lifestyles, including retrofitting of homes, higher electricity costs and electricity rationing, rolling blackouts, higher food costs, restrictions on sales and travel for electric vehicles, limiting meat consumption, higher taxes, etc.   Our future promises to be bleak if we proceed down this path.   

But the literature is full of myopic, optimistic promises in support of a renewable future.   We’ll be able to share power between geographic areas, they say, in the event that one area has a sudden increase in demand.   This constitutes wishful thinking.   Studies have shown that this argument isn’t valid, as demonstrated by the recent Midwest/Texas freeze that crippled half the country, and Texas’ ERCOT system was only 4 minutes away from collapse of its electrical grid.   

The futility of “going it alone” has also been demonstrated by a Vermont Electric Cooperative study.   Several years ago the Vermont Electric Cooperative (VEC) performed a study to determine what would be required for it to generate all of its electric power needs, without relying on outside sources.   VEC concluded that a renewable system would be “technically challenging and economically infeasible” due to oversizing its system to meet wintertime demand.   VEC estimated that it would require 3X-19X more capacity than their present system, to overcome the intermittent nature of renewables and provide some battery backup power.   The cost of such a system was estimated to be 1000X greater than their present transmission costs.                       

While we have had a dependable system of electrical power consisting of power sources like coal and nuclear, intermittent renewables such as wind and solar are replacing them in some misguided effort to “save the planet”.   Some renewables, such as biomass, are actually very polluting, but strangely uncounted and fully exempted from carbon regulations.   Commercial wind and solar power are also detrimental to the environment, killing wildlife and consuming inordinate amounts of land.   

To make matters worse, several major countries (China, India, and Russia) have been exempted from pollution regulations, free to do what they want.   These countries’ exemptions are purposeful, part of a “contraction and convergence” philosophy.   The idea is that more advanced countries will contract or reduce their carbon output, while less developed ones will be free to do as they wish for a time, then the belt-tightening later would be equitable for everyone.   The whole mess is fueled by political ideology as much as anything else.   The basic idea behind it all has been to punish nations with high standards of living, primarily the U.S.   China just has to love the competitive advantage it’s been given.   After all, China controls most of the world’s solar panels and rare earth minerals used in making high-tech devices.    

If we replace coal, natural gas, and nuclear with intermittent wind and solar, it will represent a significant threat to our way of life.   For solar, the Sun doesn’t shine at night, so backup batteries will be necessary to power us during off-periods.   At a utility scale, this is an impossibility.   Fairbanks, Alaska has one of the world’s largest batteries (the size of a football field), but it could only supply Fairbanks with power for 7 minutes.   And renewable power cannot be used to reboot or “black start” a collapsed grid system.

The whole concept of a renewable power system is full of problems, including one known in business as EROEI (Energy Returned On Energy Invested).   This principle compares the cost of retrieving energy with the expected return from its sale.   The EROEI is considered acceptable when it exceeds a value of 7, meaning 7 times the return compared to its cost, but solar and wind have EROEI’s of 2 and 4, respectively.   What that means in real life is much higher energy prices and the loss of valuable social programs, the arts, diminished lifestyles, etc., all to afford the more expensive renewable energy.   The poor would be especially hurt, as they spend a much higher percentage of their income on energy.   Our northern tier states would also suffer from renewable mandates, as they now use fossil fuels for the majority of their heating needs. 

If you pay attention, you may hear how some individual, city or state plans to have “net zero” carbon emissions by maybe 2050.   It’s doubtful they’ll be able to do so, and they may well ruin things in trying.   This is an accounting trick and doesn’t represent the true picture, something like having your cake and eating it too.   What “net zero” means is that an individual or entity feeds as much electricity into the electrical grid as they use.  So, during peak daylight hours their excess solar generation feeds into the power grid, and at night when there’s no Sun they draw power from the grid.   A high level of net zero users is a real danger to a utility.   

In California, too much solar feeding into the grid from 11:00-3:00 has created a difficult, “duck curve” problem for grid operators, and the problem is expected to get much worse with increased net zero users or as new houses are required to have solar panels.   The problem is that the utility’s power grid must accept any excess electricity generated by homeowners, which means that conventional power sources (coal, natural gas, nuclear, etc.) must throttle back to maintain an electrical balance.   Conventional power sources, called baseload power, need to run fairly consistently, and throttling back makes them less efficient and the utility less profitable.   It’s also important that net zero entities have some place to dump their excess solar generation during high periods, but what if the utility wasn’t there due to becoming unprofitable?                       

With a reduced utility presence or a significantly scaled back one, homeowners would be forced to install their own roof-mounted solar panels and backup batteries.   Residential roofs would need to be covered with solar panels to generate enough solar power for both the house and electric vehicles, and to store enough battery power for off-peak periods.   In Tennessee, the average residence uses about 15,000 kilowatt-hours (kWh) annually, averaging about 40kWh per day.   One popular EV consumes some 3500-4000 kWh per year, and with the average home having 1.88 vehicles, that additional 7000-8— kWh would increase a home’s electrical consumption by 50%.

To support the home’s required solar panels, the electrical system of the home would need to be re-wired to support Level 2 EV charging for the electric vehicles, and large back-up batteries would be necessary to store solar energy for off-periods.   Solar panels don’t last forever, and need to be replaced at 20 year intervals or so.   Replacement should occur in conjunction with a new roof, otherwise you’ll pay about $2000 for the panels to be removed before a new roof can be installed.   Firemen may not fight any house fire until the solar panels are disconnected from the grid, to avoid the possibility of electrocution. 

For those who cannot use solar – buildings over 4 stories, wooded lots, non-southern exposures, etc. – there would probably be further regulations on what can be done in the home.   The utility just wouldn’t be able to support the power demand that it once did.   Workplaces will be regulated for everyone, as well as freedom of movement.    

Long trips would probably be restricted, as explained below, so apologies to Grandma.   If the government did allow you to take a trip somewhere, some surprises would be in store.   My present economy car will get me to Memphis on one tank of gas, whether it’s hot or cold..   For an EV in cold weather, you’ve just lost 40% of your EV driving range due to heating your vehicle’s interior.   Fast-charging your EV would also require immense amounts of electricity for a brief time, possibly 200-250 kilowatts (kW) for 10-20 minutes.   A fast-charging electrical ‘service station’ of the future, with an average of 8 bays like today’s stations, might consume 1600-2000 kW during that time period, compared to maybe 1 kW or less for your entire house.   

So the electrical service station would be a “gas hog” that a utility couldn’t support.   For example, 60,000 Texans, or 0.2% of a population of 29 million, having their EV’s fast-charged at the same time would temporarily double the entire electricity demand for ERCOT, the state’s supplier.   

The dirty little secret is that your power would not always be your own.   Solar panels connected to a smart grid can also backfeed power into the grid, so the utility company could also access your car or home’s solar panels in the event of an electricity shortage.   While you’re at work or sleeping, expecting your EV or home to be receiving electricity, the utility could actually be taking it from people, using their collective power like some giant battery, to balance the electrical grid.  Today Fairbanks, Alaska has one of the world’s largest utility-scale batteries, the size of a football field, and it could only power Fairbanks for 7 minutes.   

Some people would be in even more electrical difficulty, because all residences aren’t suitable for solar.   The Fed says that buildings in excess of 4 stories can’t generate enough solar power, nor can people with wooded lots or non-southern exposures to the Sun.   I find the wooded lot question especially interesting, since city planners have historically promoted the opposing concept of the “urban forest”.   In the future, people will be less inclined to plant something that’s going to block their solar power.   And winter solar insolation is much less than summer due to the Sun’s lower angle in the sky.

Your present life is simplified by having dependable electricity from your utility, but a solar-based future would force you to become something akin to an engineer.   You now contact the utility when there’s an outage, but what would happen when you’re in charge of your own power and it fails?   Who are you gonna call?   Or what if you needed more power and the utility has been downsized due to government regulations?   Wouldn’t you rather do something else besides dealing with panels, batteries, EV charging, etc?   Personally, I’d rather just flip a switch and do something more interesting.   

Utilities are now being pushed by a renewables craze, partially pressured by government regulations.   Their operating safety margins, called reserve capacity, stand at about 30% nationally.   These safety margins, however, can quickly become depleted during extreme cold or heat waves.   Renewables reduce these safety margins even further due to their intermittency, leaving even smaller margins for significant weather events.   Situations like the recent weather event in Texas will become more common as we lose those safety margins.   Think of California.   Think of soon-to-be-bad and worse later.   Many electric power experts, such as the Independent System Operators (ISO’s) of New England and California, have been warning about this and the duck curve problem for some time, but nobody seems to be listening.   

The best way to get out of this irrational roller coaster is to adopt a clean form of electricity with the lowest environmental footprint possible – nuclear power.   Nuclear would easily support a better lifestyle for 1000’s of years and provide enough “baseload” power for EV use, but the public must overcome its fears.   Today’s nuclear designs are very impressive and extremely safe.   It can take decades to implement needed changes to our electricity system and, if we don’t change course now, we will be going down the wrong path for the future.