Russ Schussler, aka Planning Engineer, has published a prequel to an upcoming article discussing the narrative around the green energy transition that is a prominent component of the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act).
I am convinced that implementation of the Climate Act net-zero mandates will do more harm than good if the future electric system relies only on wind, solar, and energy storage because of reliability and affordability risks. I have followed the Climate Act since it was first proposed, submitted comments on the Climate Act implementation plan, and have written over 500 articles about New York’s net-zero transition. The opinions expressed in this post do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other organization I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.
Overview
The Climate Act established a New York “Net Zero” target (85% reduction in GHG emissions and 15% offset of emissions) by 2050. Two targets address the electric sector: 70% of the electricity must come from renewable energy by 2030 and all electricity must be generated by “zero-emissions” resources by 2040. The Climate Action Council (CAC) was responsible for preparing the Scoping Plan that outlined how to “achieve the State’s bold clean energy and climate agenda.” The Scoping Plan was finalized at the end of 2022. Schussler’s article is relevant because the Scoping Plan proposes to meet the zero-emissions mandate using wind, solar, and energy storage.
Green Energy Narrative
Schussler describes the narrative of the wind and solar proponents aka green energy:
The green energy narrative works somewhat like a magician’s patter, overemphasizing many things of irrelevance and distracting the audience from the important things going on. Misdirection ensures small truths are misinterpreted and magnified, leading to completely unrealistic hopes and expectations.
For example, there have been many simple studies examining how much energy might be produced by a green resource, or set of green resources, such as wind and solar power. These studies ignore important issues such as deliverability, timing, reliability and costs. Based on simple studies the media, activists and policy makers frequently conclude that such resources can be used near universally on a large scale to provide electric service to consumers effectively, efficiently and economically.
This is precisely what happened in New York when the Climate Act authors developed the targets and mandates of the law. These ideologues misinformed the Legislature and Governor Hochul with claims that “our State could rapidly move away from fossil fuels and instead be fueled completely by the power of the wind, the sun, and hydro” and “that it could be done completely with technologies available at that time (a decade ago), that it could be cost effective, that it would be hugely beneficial for public health and energy security, and that it would stimulate a large increase in well-paying jobs.”
Schussler explains the problem with this argument:
In the green energy narrative costs have been demonstrated, environmental impacts have been demonstrated, reliability has been demonstrated, deliverability has been demonstrated and all shown to possibly work, BUT NOT AT THE SAME TIME. In the eyes of many, such demonstrations cumulatively strengthen the green energy narrative. However, the gullible audience will be shocked when wind, solar and batteries are not at all well suited to support electric generation on their own.
Schussler highlights three tricks of the green energy narrative: misleading language, false problem and narrative control.
Misleading Language
Schussler addresses the term “renewable” calling it “one of the most misleading bits of language advancing the green agenda.” He notes:
Different “renewable” resources have vastly differing capabilities. There is vast potential to develop some ‘renewables”. Some “renewables do a great job supporting the grid. Some “renewables” have low energy costs in some areas. Some “renewables” are environmentally sound in some areas. No matter how well individual “renewable” resources might be combined to tick off all the boxes of importance, that doesn’t mean that any combination of “renewable” resources can be found that will work well for any given area. It means little that hydro and geothermal provide excellent support for the grid in an area where you can only add wind and solar. Similarly, just because solar and wind have potential environmental benefits that doesn’t cancel out environmental concerns around hydro in delicate ecosystems.
The problem is that in most areas including New York, “there are no compatible combinations of renewables that at any significantly high penetration level that can provide affordable, environmentally responsible energy in a reliable manner. Referring broadly to what “renewables” can and might do, serves to hide this inconvenient truth.”
The False Problem – Intermittency is not THE problem for Wind and Solar
Schussler argues that:
It is a fallacy to assume that because part or some of the difficulties associated with a technology can be overcome, that therefore all of the problems associated with a technology can be overcome. Worst case for a “partial solutions fallacy” is when a major problem is hidden by presenting a minor problem as the major stumbling block. Primarily focusing on the minor problem incorrectly implies that there will be smooth sailing once this solvable problem is overcome by hiding the large problem.
To implement a green transition bolstered by heavy wind and solar, all associated problems must be addressed. The major problem associated with wide-scale use of these resources cannot be ignored.
Schussler goes on to argue:
The real problem is that wind, solar and batteries do not readily provide essential reliability services and support the grid. Most of the talk is around addressing intermittency through batteries and other storage approaches. Misdirection here focuses on intermittency, the smaller problem, while ignoring the major problem.
Schussler believes that it may be possible to address intermittency:
The long-term problems associated with wind and solar due to their intermittency could and may likely be made manageable with improved technology and decreasing costs. But such changes will not make wind, solar and batteries comparable to more conventional generating resources, such that they can play a large role in a green energy transition, because the large problem is not intermittency.
The point of his discussion is that there is another, more serious problem that is a fatal flaw:
Overcoming intermittency though complex and expensive resource additions at best gets us around a molehill which will leave a huge mountain ahead. Where will grid support come from? Wind, solar and batteries provide energy through an electronic inverter. In practice, they lean on and are supported by conventional rotating machines. Essential Reliability Services include the ability to ramp up and down, frequency support, inertia and voltage support. For more details on the real problem see this posting. “Wind and Solar Can’t Support the Grid” describes the situation and contains links to other past postings provide greater detail on the problems.
I think that in an electric system that is reliant on weather dependent wind and solar resource, intermittency creates an unacceptable reliability risk. Current resource assessments are based on observations of the existing uncorrelated generating resources over many years that show that unplanned outages do not happen at the same time. There is no reason to expect, for example, that all the nuclear plants will be forced offline at the same time. This characteristic enables the resource planners to determine how much generating capacity is necessary to meet the probability of losing load not more than once in ten years loss of load expectation (LOLE) reliability criterion. Importantly, I believe that the lack of correlation also means that the capacity needed above firm system load would not change substantially if the LOLE planning horizon was shifted to 1 day in 20 years or more.
The problem with weather intermittency is that it is correlated over large areas at the same time. As a result, variations in weather affecting wind and solar resource availability will require changes to electric resource planning. Everyone has heard of a hundred-year flood which is the parameter used for watershed planning. This is the one in a hundred probability that the water level in a river or lake will exceed a certain level in a given year. Similar estimates of low wind and solar resource availability must be developed and incorporated into electric resource planning. Based on New York data I think a hundred-year planning horizon is appropriate. The problem is that the costs for such a threshold are huge and the resources will be used less than their expected operating lifetimes. The resulting reliability risk is that affordable backup resources will be insufficient to support the load during the hundred-year low wind and solar availability event and a catastrophic blackout will result.
Russ and I discussed my interpretation of this reliability risk, and we agreed that we are making the same point in different ways. If money is not an issue, then it is possible that the intermittency issue can be overcome by overbuilding wind and solar resources, short-term energy storage, long-term energy storage to deal with extended low wind and solar resource periods, and transmission. However, affordability is a fatal flaw because the costs necessary would be astronomical for a resource that would only be used less than the expected lifetime of the resources. On the other hand, the grid support requirements cannot be resolved by throwing any amont of money at the problem so that is unsolvable.
Narrative Control – Shameless Hucksterism and the Media
The last green energy narrative trick is controlling the narrative. Schussler explains:
The green energy narrative is propelled by stories of success. Often these “successes” are very different from what seemed to be represented. We see great stories of planned projects that should do wonderful things, but they go down the memory hole as they prove not to work out. We see incomplete stories where they talk of power generated but not of associated costs or how much better other alternatives might have been.
He goes on to describe an example headline that claims that seven countries get 99.7% of their electricity from geothermal, hydro, solar, and wind power. However, he points out:
Without the spin, collectively those countries get close to 99% of their energy from rotating synchronous geothermal and hydro resources and less that 2% of their combined electric energy from wind and solar. The fact that some countries have high amounts of hydro, does not provide evidence that we are approaching a tipping point involving wind and solar. In fact, one could observe that high levels of renewable penetration are associated with low levels of wind and solar.
Conclusion
Schussler and I agree that it is becoming increasingly apparent that wind, solar and batteries when pursued at high penetration levels result in high costs, lower reliability and poorer operational outcomes. He points out that “Expectations from the green energy narrative and real-world results are not consistent and this gulf will continue to widen as long as policy makers continue to reflexively buy into the green energy narrative.”
The high expectations in the green energy narrative shaped the promulgation of the Climate Act and is driving its implementation. Schussler describes the inherent misinformation and other various deceptions to hide the real-world challenges for New York’s net-zero transition. As reality sets in, proponents must push this narrative harder and louder to hide the obvious flaws. I look forward to Schussler’s follow up article that “will more systemically examine the components of the green energy narrative and raise many items of critical importance considerations that the green energy narrative ignores.”
Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York 