The Remarkable Progress of Renewable Energy

[lpetrich]

The US Energy Storage Market Kicks Into High Gear | Greentech Media

The latest numbers for U.S. energy storage activity are out. They show a surge of activity coming over the next five years, leading to 6x market growth.

By 2024, the storage market will be worth $4.7 billion, driven evenly by utility-scale and behind-the-meter battery projects.

Report: Levelized Cost of Energy for Lithium-Ion Batteries Is Plummeting | Greentech Media

The long-term cost of supplying grid electricity from today’s lithium-ion batteries is falling even faster than expected, making them an increasingly cost-competitive alternative to natural-gas-fired power plants across a number of key energy markets.

That’s the key finding from a Tuesday report from Bloomberg New Energy Finance on the levelized cost of energy (LCOE) — the cost of a technology delivering energy over its lifespan — for a number of key clean energy technologies worldwide.

...
In fact, the LCOE for multi-hour lithium-ion batteries is falling to the point that “batteries co-located with solar or wind projects are starting to compete, in many markets and without subsidy, with coal- and gas-fired generation for the provision of ‘dispatchable power’ that can be delivered whenever the grid needs it (as opposed to only when the wind is blowing, or the sun is shining),” the report notes.

...
Just this week, clean energy advocacy and research organization Energy Innovation and Vibrant Clean Energy released a report finding that the LCOE of new renewables in the U.S. is lower than that of nearly three-quarters of the U.S. coal fleet — a not completely surprising finding, given the coal power industry’s well-documented challenges in competing with cheap natural gas, and increasingly cheap wind and solar power.

Germany Looks to Put Thermal Storage Into Coal Plants | Greentech Media

The German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt or DLR) is investigating whether Germany’s coal plants could be reused as energy storage assets.

The research body, which has a track record in concentrated solar power (CSP) development, is planning a pilot that will involve ripping out the boiler from an old coal plant and replacing it with a molten salt thermal storage tank that will be heated using excess renewable energy.

If the concept works, then advocates say it could help safeguard coal generation jobs while giving Germany tens of gigawatts of storage capacity for renewable energy load-shifting on the German grid.

That progress is very welcome to see.

 

[lpetrich]

Big Oil Invested More Than $1 Billion On Misleading Climate Lobbying Since Paris | CleanTechnica -- that conspiracy is real, it seems.

Which Regions & States Are Leading In Local Clean Energy? | CleanTechnica noting The 2018 Community Power State Scorecard - Institute for Local Self-Reliance California was one of the best, as one might expect.

Vestas Reclaims Global Wind Manufacturing Lead As It Finishes Q1 With A Subsidy-Free Bang | CleanTechnica Success without subsidies is most welcome. That makes adoption of wind and solar generation less of an uphill struggle.

Renewables In Britain To Overtake Fossil Fuels By 2020 | CleanTechnica

 

[steve_bank]

That is all fine and dandy. From the links I posted replacing the total energy content of gasoline will require the equivalent of many nukes. A near impossible task at least in time to help with climate.

Electric cars require electricity.

 

[bilby]

Neither Cleantechnica not Greentech Media are reliable sources of information. They are pure propaganda outlets who will never allow facts or reason to get in the way of their agenda.

They are unreasonably enthusiastic about trivial advances in renewables, while completely ignoring any facts that don't fit the narrative they wish to pursue.

In short, if you can't find the same information on more reliable and less biased sites, their "information" is worse than useless. And if you can, then you should.

I trust neither as far as I could throw a brick chimney by its smoke, and I strongly advise you to do likewise.

 

[bilby]

Big Oil Invested More Than $1 Billion On Misleading Climate Lobbying Since Paris | CleanTechnica -- that conspiracy is real, it seems.

A stopped clock is tight twice a day.

Which Regions & States Are Leading In Local Clean Energy? | CleanTechnica noting The 2018 Community Power State Scorecard - Institute for Local Self-Reliance California was one of the best, as one might expect.

California is utterly dependent on importing electricity from neighbouring states that burn fossil fuels. They pay other states to take the cheap power nobody wants, and then pay again for expensive power they can't do without.

Essentially, CA uses its neighbours as a big, expensive, gas-powered 'battery', paying through the nose to push their carbon emissions onto other states, so that they look good, without the hassle of actually being good.

Vestas Reclaims Global Wind Manufacturing Lead As It Finishes Q1 With A Subsidy-Free Bang | CleanTechnica Success without subsidies is most welcome. That makes adoption of wind and solar generation less of an uphill struggle.

There's no success without subsidies for wind power - the subsidies are just concealed rather than direct.

Renewables In Britain To Overtake Fossil Fuels By 2020 | CleanTechnica

Renewables in Britain are mostly 'biomass', which is mostly wood imported from America. It's not really renewable, it's not even vaguely good for the environment, and it's not even close to carbon neutral.

Wind and solar in the UK are frankly pathetic.

 

[lpetrich]

That is all fine and dandy. From the links I posted replacing the total energy content of gasoline will require the equivalent of many nukes. A near impossible task at least in time to help with climate.

That is why I think that synthetic fuels are a necessary part in renewable-energy development. It's hard to compete with the density of usable energy that hydrocarbon fuels have. Furthermore, liquid ones are very convenient to handle and store.

But looking at the renewable-energy sites that I like to read, there is very little on synfuels, much less than on batteries or electric cars. So it is a missing piece of the puzzle. Will that means that we will revert to horses while having wind and solar electricity generation? I doubt that this imbalance will ever go that far, but it is an imbalance, and it suggests that much of our electricity could be generated by renewable sources even as many vehicles continue to be powered by petroleum-derived fuels.


Synthetic fuels can be made by the Fischer-Tropsch process and variants. One starts by electrolyzing water, giving hydrogen, because most renewable sources are best-adapted to making electricity, as are nuclear reactors. One then gets carbon dioxide from the air, and then combines it with this hydrogen. With a high enough fraction of hydrogen, one gets hydrocarbons, and one can also get compounds like methanol:
CO2 + H2 -> CO + H2O
CO + H2 -> CH2O
CH2O + H2 -> CH3OH
CH3OH + H2 -> CH4 + H2O

An alternative that I've posted on is electrolysis directly to ammonia. Although ammonia is toxic and bad-smelling, it is much easier to liquefy than hydrogen. It is also an important feedstock for fertilizers, and going directly to ammonia avoids having to combine nitrogen and hydrogen afterward, like in the Haber-Bosch process.

So with electrolysis, one can kill two birds with one stone, making both synfuels and nitrogen fertilizers.

 

[bilby]

An interesting case study - Vermont tried to replace nuclear power with wind and solar.

Spoiler alert - it's been a total failure.

 

[lpetrich]

Neither Cleantechnica not Greentech Media are reliable sources of information. They are pure propaganda outlets who will never allow facts or reason to get in the way of their agenda.

Because they are not blindly enthusiastic about nuclear energy?

They are unreasonably enthusiastic about trivial advances in renewables, while completely ignoring any facts that don't fit the narrative they wish to pursue.

Trivial? Like what?

I must note another thing. Rooftop photovoltaic cells have become a big business, and there is a little bit of business in home-scale wind turbines, but where are the home-scale RTG's?

 

[bilby]

Neither Cleantechnica not Greentech Media are reliable sources of information. They are pure propaganda outlets who will never allow facts or reason to get in the way of their agenda.

Because they are not blindly enthusiastic about nuclear energy?

No, because they are blindly enthusiastic about renewables.

They are unreasonably enthusiastic about trivial advances in renewables, while completely ignoring any facts that don't fit the narrative they wish to pursue.

Trivial? Like what?

Like generating loads of power nobody wants, while utterly failing to generate power people do want - and claiming that this averages out as excellent news, on the basis that one day there might be adequate storage capacity to make it all work.

I must note another thing. Rooftop photovoltaic cells have become a big business, and there is a little bit of business in home-scale wind turbines, but where are the home-scale RTG's?

Banned by terrified idiots.

Never mind home RTGs, ALL nuclear power plants are banned in Australia.

Because they are 'too dangerous' despite literally EVERY alternative being more dangerous.

Reason and fact are not major players in the power generation debate.

 

[steve_bank]

That is all fine and dandy. From the links I posted replacing the total energy content of gasoline will require the equivalent of many nukes. A near impossible task at least in time to help with climate.

That is why I think that synthetic fuels are a necessary part in renewable-energy development. It's hard to compete with the density of usable energy that hydrocarbon fuels have. Furthermore, liquid ones are very convenient to handle and store.

But looking at the renewable-energy sites that I like to read, there is very little on synfuels, much less than on batteries or electric cars. So it is a missing piece of the puzzle. Will that means that we will revert to horses while having wind and solar electricity generation? I doubt that this imbalance will ever go that far, but it is an imbalance, and it suggests that much of our electricity could be generated by renewable sources even as many vehicles continue to be powered by petroleum-derived fuels.


Synthetic fuels can be made by the Fischer-Tropsch process and variants. One starts by electrolyzing water, giving hydrogen, because most renewable sources are best-adapted to making electricity, as are nuclear reactors. One then gets carbon dioxide from the air, and then combines it with this hydrogen. With a high enough fraction of hydrogen, one gets hydrocarbons, and one can also get compounds like methanol:
CO2 + H2 -> CO + H2O
CO + H2 -> CH2O
CH2O + H2 -> CH3OH
CH3OH + H2 -> CH4 + H2O

An alternative that I've posted on is electrolysis directly to ammonia. Although ammonia is toxic and bad-smelling, it is much easier to liquefy than hydrogen. It is also an important feedstock for fertilizers, and going directly to ammonia avoids having to combine nitrogen and hydrogen afterward, like in the Haber-Bosch process.

So with electrolysis, one can kill two birds with one stone, making both synfuels and nitrogen fertilizers.

I don't think people grasp the scope of the problem.nEspercialy those nehinmd the New Green deal who thunk within 20-30 years we can be entirely off of fossil fuel.

As a rough approximation look at the average irradiance at the surface in the uSA, assume 30% total energy conversion efficiency, and calculate how many square meters needed to replace the Mwh equal to gasoline consumption.

Back in the 90s a hydrogen economy was being hyped. What they did not understand that it takes energy to create hydrogen.

You can not het around Laws Of Thermodynamics.

In any sequential physical process efficiencies multiply.

I worked on a hydrogen proposal at an engineering company I worked at. It was for the billionaire Pickens. He envisioned a string of north south wind turbines across the mid west. The idea was to siphon off a little energy form a turbine to create hydrogen. During low wind hydrogen would run a fuel cell and inverter.

We looked at it and declined to submit a proposal. For 1 turbine running the grid you would need multiple turbines to create enough hydrogen to serve as a backup.


You can buy small desk top demo electrolysis units on line and fuel cells.

Nuclear fission uses the energy already locked up in atoms.

For the chemical reactions you list what is the energy in energy out ratio? For the total process including liquefaction of a substance? For 1 joule out how many joules are consumed?

 

[bilby]

There's a common misapprehension that storage is required by nuclear power generation systems when used in real world grids. This isn't actually true - many nuclear plant designs can 'load follow' - but it is true that the most economical way to run nuclear plants is flat out, due to the higher proportion of their costs that are fixed costs (such as construction) vs variable costs (such as fuel).

Some renewable energy advocates will counter the argument that the storage required by wind and/or solar renders them impractical, by suggesting that the same applies to nuclear - 'both need storage such as pumped hydro' I hear people say. True enough, for a given value of 'need'; But the scale is not even remotely comparable.

Intermittent renewables require not only VASTLY more storage than nuclear, for a given demand profile; They also need VASTLY more generating capacity, due to the fact that they only run at full power 10-25% of the time, compared to ~90% for nuclear plants - which can also plan their downtime to avoid downtime at other plants (or even other reactors at the same plant), and to avoid seasonal demand peaks.

This article from the Alberta Nuclear Nucleus puts some numbers on this - and shows just how huge the extra storage and generating capacities need to be for a grid powered by intermittent sources.

Nuclear power may be more expensive than wind or solar per nameplate GW; But it's FAR cheaper per GW delivered, even before adding in the HUGE cost of storage required by intermittent renewables, vs the tiny amount "needed" to maximise efficency in a nuclear powered grid.

 

[lpetrich]

Goldman Sachs Buys 233 Megawatts of Commercial Solar Leases from SunPower | Greentech Media - "Deal covering 200 project sites reflects growing interest in commercial solar assets from institutional investors." The article had a picture of some industrial sort of building with solar panels on its roof, and it had the heading "Commercial & Industrial Energy".

So it's not just hippies using solar panels.

Florida Power & Light's Huge Solar-Plus-Storage System the 'New Norm' for Utilities | Greentech Media -- 409 MW and 900 MWh, a little over 2 hours. Enough for some 329,000 homes. Should be done in 2021.

"Based on what we are seeing out of Arizona, Florida, Puerto Rico and Hawaii, you can draw a line across the sunniest parts of the U.S. and find where solar-plus-storage has begun to outcompete natural-gas peakers," he said. "As battery costs continue to drop and incentives are rolled out, expect that line to creep farther and farther north."

Fact-Checking President Trump's Assessment of Wind Power and Electric Vehicles | Greentech Media

Report: Levelized Cost of Energy for Lithium-Ion Batteries Is Plummeting | Greentech Media Over the last year worldwide, the LCOE has been dropping:

• Lithium-ion batteries: 35%
• Offshore wind: 24%
• Onshore wind: 10%
• Solar PV: 28%

"To be sure, these generation technologies are still far cheaper than batteries in terms of their LCOEs — and that’s not mentioning the fact that they actually make electricity, rather than simply storing it for later use."

 

[lpetrich]

B.C. company says it is sucking carbon from air, making fuel | CBC News

A British Columbia company says in newly published research that it's doing just that — and for less than one-third the cost of other companies working on the same technology.

"This isn't a PowerPoint presentation," said Steve Oldham of Carbon Engineering. "It's real."

I had a chuckle at that comparison.

Carbon Engineering's fuel costs about 25 per cent more than gasoline made from oil. Oldham said work is being done to reduce that.

Because the plant currently uses some natural gas, by the time the fuel it produces has been burned it has released a half-tonne of carbon dioxide for every tonne removed from the air. That gives it a carbon footprint 70 per cent lower than a fossil fuel, he said.

That footprint would shrink further if the plant were all-electric. And if it ran on wind- or solar-generated electricity, the fuel would be almost carbon neutral.

I found the company's home page: Carbon Engineering: CO2 capture and the synthesis of clean transportation fuels That page advertises two technologies:

1. Direct Air Capture
2. AIR TO FUELS™

The first of them is capture of CO2 from the air and concentration of it. It can then either be pumped underground or used as a chemical feedstock, like for the second process.

The second one:

Carbon Engineering’s AIR TO FUELS™ technology uses CO₂ that has been captured directly from air to synthesize clean transportation fuels.

This process uses renewable electricity to generate hydrogen from water, and then combines it with CO₂ captured from the atmosphere to produce hydrocarbon fuels such as diesel, gasoline, and Jet-A. It gives us a way to produce global scale quantities of clean fuels that are compatible with today’s transportation infrastructure and engines, but add little or no fossil carbon emissions to the atmosphere.

That is, synthetic fuels or synfuels.

Here is another electric-powered synfuel effort: Nordic Blue Crude AS

Could synfuels finally be taking off? They would thus join wind energy, solar energy, and improved batteries in getting rapid development, rapid growth, and rapid fall in cost.

 

[lpetrich]

Wind Farm Ushers In Era Of Renewable Energy In Tasmania | CleanTechnica

The average wind speed on the western edge of Tasmania is 30 km/h. Not just some days, not just in certain seasons, every hour of every day year round. That’s what makes it an ideal location for wind turbines. The Granville Harbour wind farm will feature 31 of the wind turbines that measure 200 meters from their base to the tip of the blades. The project will cost $280 million to build and provide enough electricity to run 46,000 homes when completed.

It should be in operation by the end of this year.

First Individually Owned Community Solar Project Opens In Oakland | CleanTechnica

Scientists Propose Alternatives To Rare Earth Elements Critical For Wind Turbines | CleanTechnica

Diesel-Killing Alaska Solar Power Company Walks The Green New Deal Walk (#CleanTechnica Interview) | CleanTechnica -- notice how tilted the solar panels are.

Why lithium-ion technology is poised to dominate the energy storage future - Renewable Energy World -- no mention of the rarity of lithium.

The coal end game: Building new renewables is cheaper than running existing coal plants - Renewable Energy World

Germany generated more than 50 percent of electricity from renewables in March - Renewable Energy World

 

[bilby]

Wind Farm Ushers In Era Of Renewable Energy In Tasmania | CleanTechnica

The average wind speed on the western edge of Tasmania is 30 km/h. Not just some days, not just in certain seasons, every hour of every day year round.

See, this is why CleanTechnica can't be taken seriously.

NOWHERE has constant wind, every hour of every day, year round.

Sure, the west coast of Tassie is windy. But it has calm days. Not many, but enough to seriously fuck you up if your society is dependent on wind power without backup.

That’s what makes it an ideal location for wind turbines. The Granville Harbour wind farm will feature 31 of the wind turbines that measure 200 meters from their base to the tip of the blades. The project will cost $280 million to build and provide enough electricity to run 46,000 homes when completed.

It should be in operation by the end of this year.

The same spend on a nuclear power plant would be a MUCH better investment.

First Individually Owned Community Solar Project Opens In Oakland | CleanTechnica

Scientists Propose Alternatives To Rare Earth Elements Critical For Wind Turbines | CleanTechnica

Diesel-Killing Alaska Solar Power Company Walks The Green New Deal Walk (#CleanTechnica Interview) | CleanTechnica -- notice how tilted the solar panels are.

Notice how little energy they collect.

Why lithium-ion technology is poised to dominate the energy storage future - Renewable Energy World -- no mention of the rarity of lithium.

Lithium isn't rare.

It is expensive though. Because extracting it and turning it into batteries is hard.

The coal end game: Building new renewables is cheaper than running existing coal plants - Renewable Energy World

Sure. But that's only if you ignore storage and grid stability. Neither of which can be ignored if you want to avoid blackouts.

Germany generated more than 50 percent of electricity from renewables in March - Renewable Energy World

And the VAST majority of it was generated when the wholesale electricity price was either lower than the cost of generation, or even, in many cases, negative.

Which is fucking fantastic, if you are a Russian gas salesman, but otherwise is totally futile.

 

[Tigers!]

Another one fell off the renewables wagon

https://reneweconomy.com.au/solarreserve-abandons-huge-solar-tower-and-storage-plant-near-port-augusta-93885/

Australia has had far too many of these sort of projects fail. Too much tax payers money is thrown at such schemes and they are failing too often. Tidal, geothermal and now molten-salt solar is gone.
If the cost of generating renewals is so low how are these projects failing to get finance?

We get huge press releases when these projects begin. Grandiose claims are made. Yet when they fail it is barely mentioned. Embarrassment seems to be the reason why.

 

[bigfield]

Another one fell off the renewables wagon

https://reneweconomy.com.au/solarre...er-and-storage-plant-near-port-augusta-93885/

Australia has had far too many of these sort of projects fail. Too much tax payers money is thrown at such schemes and they are failing too often. Tidal, geothermal and now molten-salt solar is gone.
If the cost of generating renewals is so low how are these projects failing to get finance?

We get huge press releases when these projects begin. Grandiose claims are made. Yet when they fail it is barely mentioned. Embarrassment seems to be the reason why.

Maybe these projects need some subsidies or free stuff to make them more attractive to financiers, like the free water we're giving to the Adani coal mine.

So what I really mean is that solar companies need to start buying off politicians like the big players are doing.

Or maybe investors would have more confidence if we just need some policy certainty with respect to clean energy adoption instead of the shitshow were getting from this rudderless mob of corrupt clowns.

 

[bilby]

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/07/business/climate-carbon-renewables.html

A vast amount of money has been spent on wind turbines and solar power facilities. Considerable amounts of electricity are now generated by such facilities. And yet this has had almost no impact on the cabon intensity of energy worldwide.

It's a remarkably successful technological change - as long as we don't measure success in terms of overall carbon emissions, or in terms of reduced energy costs.

If the plan was to occupy vast swathes of land with renewable energy plants, or to employ lots of people constructing, installing, maintaining, decommissioning and lobbying for these facilities, but not to worry about climate change or about making energy more expensive for the people who need it, then renewables have been remarkably successful.

But I would prefer to generate cheap, clean power; and to have less environmental impact. Apparently the renewables lobby doesn't share that preference - or are totally incompetent in pursuit of it.

 

[lpetrich]

Cheap, clean electricity generation? Coming right up. US Could Achieve 3X As Much CO2 Savings With Renewables Instead Of Nuclear For Less Money | CleanTechnica

It takes a median 15 years to build a single new nuclear plant per the global fleet’s stats, and replacing all of the coal and gas plants is a major program. Call it 30 years all in before it could all be replaced. So in 15 years we’d likely start seeing a reduction and in 30 years we’d see the maximum reduction. Nuclear advocates like to claim it’s a lot faster than that, but the reality of the assessment is that speed was something that was achieved early on in some programs, but more recently it takes a lot longer. Even if it were 10 years instead of 15 years, the benefits of nuclear vs renewables would still be poor.

...
And wind and solar are an awful lot faster to build than nuclear, with first power within two years, and full replacement possible in fifteen years. If we compare the savings over the 30 years, we would get triple the benefit with a saving of around 33 billion tons for wind and solar vs 11 billion tons for nuclear.

And wind and solar are a lot cheaper than nuclear. Right now unsubsidized onshore wind and solar are under $40 per MWH or 4 cents per KWH, and many places are already seeing $20 per MWH. So that’s 2.5 to 7.5 times cheaper than the nuclear.

Not only faster, but also better downward scaling.

Wind & Solar In China Generating 2× Nuclear Today, Will Be 4× By 2030 | CleanTechnica

China’s example is meaningful because it disproves several arguments of those in favor of increased nuclear generation. It’s not suffering under regulatory burden. It’s mostly been using the same nuclear technologies over and over again, not innovating with every new plant. It doesn’t have the same issues with social license due to the nature of the governmental system. The government has a lot of money. The inhibitors to widespread deployment are much lower.

Yet China has significantly slowed its nuclear generation rollout while accelerating its wind and solar rollout.

...
Why is China slowing its nuclear rollout so drastically? Because nuclear is turning out to be more expensive than expected, new nuclear designs are proving to be uneconomical, and new wind and solar are dirt cheap and much easier to build.

...
As I noted in 2014, the wind generation program had started much later than the nuclear program yet had been able to build much more capacity much more quickly, roughly six times more real wind energy capacity than nuclear per year over the years of 2010 through 2014.

 

[bilby]

Cheap, clean electricity generation? Coming right up. US Could Achieve 3X As Much CO2 Savings With Renewables Instead Of Nuclear For Less Money | CleanTechnica

It takes a median 15 years to build a single new nuclear plant per the global fleet’s stats, and replacing all of the coal and gas plants is a major program. Call it 30 years all in before it could all be replaced. So in 15 years we’d likely start seeing a reduction and in 30 years we’d see the maximum reduction. Nuclear advocates like to claim it’s a lot faster than that, but the reality of the assessment is that speed was something that was achieved early on in some programs, but more recently it takes a lot longer. Even if it were 10 years instead of 15 years, the benefits of nuclear vs renewables would still be poor.

...
And wind and solar are an awful lot faster to build than nuclear, with first power within two years, and full replacement possible in fifteen years. If we compare the savings over the 30 years, we would get triple the benefit with a saving of around 33 billion tons for wind and solar vs 11 billion tons for nuclear.

And wind and solar are a lot cheaper than nuclear. Right now unsubsidized onshore wind and solar are under $40 per MWH or 4 cents per KWH, and many places are already seeing $20 per MWH. So that’s 2.5 to 7.5 times cheaper than the nuclear.

Not only faster, but also better downward scaling.

Wind & Solar In China Generating 2× Nuclear Today, Will Be 4× By 2030 | CleanTechnica

China’s example is meaningful because it disproves several arguments of those in favor of increased nuclear generation. It’s not suffering under regulatory burden. It’s mostly been using the same nuclear technologies over and over again, not innovating with every new plant. It doesn’t have the same issues with social license due to the nature of the governmental system. The government has a lot of money. The inhibitors to widespread deployment are much lower.

Yet China has significantly slowed its nuclear generation rollout while accelerating its wind and solar rollout.

...
Why is China slowing its nuclear rollout so drastically? Because nuclear is turning out to be more expensive than expected, new nuclear designs are proving to be uneconomical, and new wind and solar are dirt cheap and much easier to build.

...
As I noted in 2014, the wind generation program had started much later than the nuclear program yet had been able to build much more capacity much more quickly, roughly six times more real wind energy capacity than nuclear per year over the years of 2010 through 2014.

There's no denying that wind and solar are very popular ways to give the appearance of caring about climate change.

The problem is, that no matter how popular they are, or how many installations get built, they don't reduce carbon emissions.

Wind and solar are the thoughts and prayers of climate change mitigation - they are cheap, easy to do, and make everyone think that you are caring and virtuous. But they don't actually do anything to fix the problem.