For eye-popping, factual data simply look up who the RTO is [PJM Interconnection LLC (PJM)],its genesis from inception [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PJM_Interconnection] ,and what its real time power generation [by "Fuel Type"] is.
Not sure which was better Robert -- seeing the real story through the charts and data that are powerful and compelling- or your commentary about the NGO reactions !
In 2011 Andrew Cuomo carried on with his obsessive quest to shutter the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant. At that time, an unstoppable force crashed into the Cuomo wall in NY called Michael Bloomberg. He had blistering criticism of the close of Indian Point and said "If you close the plant today, we'd have enormous blackouts. The plant supplied about 25% of the electricity to NYC. But, Cuomo is as Cuomo does and in 2021 the plant shutdown. So, as always happens, reality strikes and the average wholesale price of electricity in NY was $47.59 MWhr, in 2022, double what it was a year before. In addition NY's electric grid is under siege as the trend for electricity surges and environmental regs impact output. Now NY's fossil fuel usage has increased to 77% where two gas plants were opened in the lower Hudson Valley, ironically the home to Indian Point, to compensate for the loss of electricity from the closure of the nuclear power plant.
What stands out about the fate of Indian Point and the ongoing blitz by Bloomberg to keep the plant open, and his staunch support of nuclear power has now evaporated as he promotes unreliable solar and wind as the savior of the planet.
But what is odd about closing coal and nuclear plants are the solutions either happening or on the drawing board in NY and other states which is the addition of massive transmission lines. In NY a 339 mile route from a dam in Canada to NY and a second 175 mile line for solar and wind to Astoria Queens. So, with a dream in their heart, they expect to pave the way to achieve zero-emissions by 2040, as mandated one should note. There is already a 515 mile twin until high voltage transmission line from NM to AZ, which is stalled in the court by the tribes in the San Pedro Valley of AZ, while 1000 wind turbines are being built in NM, but the protests have begun.
As Robert points out in his articles, there is the major element to all the rigamarole bandied about by Bloomberg and others who demand we transition from natural gas and nuclear, and mandate our source for electricity be solar, wind and hydro. But, missing is still the matter of the grid. But, a star has been found to solve all the issues surrouding the mishmash of multiple sources of energy plowing onto a creaky old grid. And, that will be AI. White papers tell us it is the promise of AI in the power grid. AI will manage the complexity and manage power to optimize energy consumption, and do all kinds of spiffy stuff. Sounds like a winner, only one thing is missing. In small print it is mentioned that AI consumes large amount of energy itself and all these spiffy ideas need just a tweak to solve just one detail. The trillions needed to update the grid to realize the benefits of emerging technologies.
So, in the end, I wonder if Bloomberg and the many big hitters like Earthjustice, Environmental Defense Fund, Sierra Club, the Tides group, and all others standing on the high mountain to transition to zero-emissions nirvana, will stop discounting facts about the elephant in the room - the U.S. grids and wake up to reality.
You're fighting with both hands tied behind your back. As long as you accept the myth that anthropogenic CO2 from burning organic (hydrocarbon) fuels is endangering the Earth, and therefore "clean energy" is "needed," you have given away the match.
There is no empirical evidence that anthropogenic CO2 has any measurable effect on atmospheric temperatures. Paleoclimate evidence demonstrates that CO2 FOLLOWS atmospheric temperature, so there is no causation.
Once it is clear that the Climate Delusion is just a popular (if elite) mania, the idea of 'transitioning' to unreliable, inefficient, expensive wind and solar electricity will wither on the vine. But you have to make the case!
What CO2 does is old science. Joseph Fourier figured out something in the atmosphere kept the earth warmer than the moon 200 years ago - Eunice Foote then narrowed it down to CO2 in 1856. you look up in a text book, like the boiling point of water at sea-level. Good luck to any conspiracy theorists trying to debunk this! Variations of this next test can be replicated in any decent physics lab on the planet. https://youtu.be/SeYfl45X1wo Mythbusters even ran a backyard test that confirmed it.
Do a little maths - and the CO2 is trapping 4 Hiroshima bombs worth of heat every second - but spread out across the entire planet. The basic physics of how CO2 traps heat is known. Where that extra heat goes and what it does to our longer term climate and shorter term weather cycles has been modelled, looks dire, and we should know better. There’s a few wrinkles - as we’re talking about the interaction between ocean cycles and the atmosphere - but generally - bad. We see receding glaciers and ice caps, seasons changing, plant shoots and grubs and the birds that eat those grubs all sprouting and hatching earlier in the wrong sequence - messing up ecosystems. The atmosphere carries 7% more water vapour for every degree warmer it is. So dry areas dry faster, and rainy areas dump deluges. Famines and floods. It also moves weather patterns, with some rain systems moving out to sea and missing the land. It interacts with ENSO weirdly - sometimes throwing Australia into a freakish drought like the 2019 fires, and other times throwing us into years of La Nina - with freakish floods. Sydney had more rain in one weekend than all the other capital cities get in a YEAR! Weather fluctuates - much like a young toddler playing in the bath water and making waves. Measure the waves and they go up and down, equalising over time. Climate is the fact that someone left the tap on. The last few decades have not been normal. We’re breaking all the records. People that deny this are … well, deniers. But they’re gradually getting older and dying out. Younger minds in school have the time to see CO2 trap heat - and learn how this works. Older minds are … older. Oh well. It’s always been the way.
Bingo! Deny the science! Burn all those fossil fuels and don't give a second thought to the future of your children and grandchildren - let alone the fact that burning these particulates costs us $5 TRILLION a year in additional health costs (WHO) and that wind and solar are now cheaper than gas and coal - and doubling every 4 years! Forget the fact that Scientific American showed just by Overbuilding wind and solar across a large area the law of large numbers can reduce storage to a tiny fraction. Forget that the world has 100 TIMES the potential off-river pumped hydro sites it needs to store all the power we need to store. Forget that the USGS says there's 22 MILLION tons of lithium reserves (and heaps more resource if it becomes economical) and at 8kg per EV, that's TWICE what we need to replace 1.4 billion cars. Forget the fact that sodium EV's are a thing - and we're NEVER going to run out of sea-salt! Forget the fact that sodium grid-batteries are a thing, and only need to work for the first hour or two before the pumped hydro kicks in. Forget the fact that HVDC powerlines are so efficient they only lose 1.6% per 1000 km so solar on the equator could hypothetically run a base at the north pole and only lose16% of the power! No - Sue Don Nim hates it all - doesn't like clean air - doesn't care about $5 TRILLION in extra health costs globally and the millions of deaths per year from pollution - and ultimately doesn't care if civilisation RUNS OUT of oil and gas and coal before we've actually got a plan B. Don't give them an inch!
Except - here's a shock for you. The IEA says there will be so many EV's by 2028 that oil demand will peak and start to decline after there, and by 2030 total FOSSIL FUEL demand will peak! They've got their eye on the trends - and can see the solar and wind going exponential.
A lawfirm pretending to be an NGO. Another in a list of thousands of reasons to deeply audit NGOs, force disclosure of funding, and demand that the vast amount of money received ges to actually help people. Lawyer payola to lawfare for genocide resulting from climate bs is not a helpful goal.
Robert - I think you're on the right track by looking at the various environmental NGOs. In particular the drama about the Brandon Shores coal plant in Mayland. In your Power Hungry Podcast you asked the question of whether the Sierra Club will tear up the contract for the sake of reliability...
Great Stack Mr. Bryce! I'm a complete layman but really enjoy learning about the energy sector. Open question along those lines - Do the NGO's employ real honest to goodness engineers...or is it primarily lawyers?
I’m just a simpleton however, it will add to more instability. Potential rolling brown outs & blackouts. Thankfully Ontario has announced some new nuclear projects that should help stem the tide.
Alberta has spent a fortune on Renewables and there are many days when it is contributing zero energy. They were smart to put a 6 month moratorium on any new Renewable projects. Renewables only add instability & none of the climate alarmists want to discuss how to dispose of them when their lives end after 20-25 years and the vast majority are anti nuclear. 🤦
Good to see the flow of money and how much. A lot of people ask me why would they be so darn wound up and shoving it on us? They just can't believe it's not for the wild pastel bunnies.
One irony of the sole focus on CO2-bad-rhetoric is that the genuine air and water pollutants from burning coal - mercury, particulate, sulfur - get overlooked by the mainstream. By design or not I don't know. Perhaps if the nat gas and nuclear folks focused on those actual pollutants there may be more 'wins' against the climatists and catastrophists. Coal has advantages for sure but there's only trade-offs in energy.
It should be hard to believe that energy regulators have never heard anyone speak who has a different point of view…but it isn’t. Public utility commissions are filled with appointees of corrupt politicians. They don’t know anything about the industry and they don’t care. Jerry Brown once appointed his brother in law to the CA commission… the guy was previously a public defender in Oakland.
I love to hear Robert speak, and It tickles me he made the enemy elites mad. Hopefully a few sparks will find some dry kindling and do some good.
I think physics will eventually win, but so much damage is getting done. The transition is luxury thinking. We can’t afford it and even if we could it wouldn’t work.
Excellent post, Robert. Your ten slides deserve wide dissemination. I touch on some of the points in my new Substack GreenNUKE. The article is titled, "Why is Grid Inertia Important?" https://greennuke.substack.com/p/why-is-grid-inertia-important Thank you for motivating me to start this Substack. (Substack seems to be having issues with signing in today. I had to sign in even though I had already subscribed.)
For eye-popping, factual data simply look up who the RTO is [PJM Interconnection LLC (PJM)],its genesis from inception [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PJM_Interconnection] ,and what its real time power generation [by "Fuel Type"] is.
The operational charts unequivocally depict - in real time - wind power and solar power generation:
At PJM home page go to "Markets and Operations" [ref upper right corner icons]
- scroll down to
- generation by Fuel Types
- further down above referenced charts.
Although it can be argued that Wind is RELATIVELY consistent there is no argument about Solar!
Not sure which was better Robert -- seeing the real story through the charts and data that are powerful and compelling- or your commentary about the NGO reactions !
In 2011 Andrew Cuomo carried on with his obsessive quest to shutter the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant. At that time, an unstoppable force crashed into the Cuomo wall in NY called Michael Bloomberg. He had blistering criticism of the close of Indian Point and said "If you close the plant today, we'd have enormous blackouts. The plant supplied about 25% of the electricity to NYC. But, Cuomo is as Cuomo does and in 2021 the plant shutdown. So, as always happens, reality strikes and the average wholesale price of electricity in NY was $47.59 MWhr, in 2022, double what it was a year before. In addition NY's electric grid is under siege as the trend for electricity surges and environmental regs impact output. Now NY's fossil fuel usage has increased to 77% where two gas plants were opened in the lower Hudson Valley, ironically the home to Indian Point, to compensate for the loss of electricity from the closure of the nuclear power plant.
What stands out about the fate of Indian Point and the ongoing blitz by Bloomberg to keep the plant open, and his staunch support of nuclear power has now evaporated as he promotes unreliable solar and wind as the savior of the planet.
But what is odd about closing coal and nuclear plants are the solutions either happening or on the drawing board in NY and other states which is the addition of massive transmission lines. In NY a 339 mile route from a dam in Canada to NY and a second 175 mile line for solar and wind to Astoria Queens. So, with a dream in their heart, they expect to pave the way to achieve zero-emissions by 2040, as mandated one should note. There is already a 515 mile twin until high voltage transmission line from NM to AZ, which is stalled in the court by the tribes in the San Pedro Valley of AZ, while 1000 wind turbines are being built in NM, but the protests have begun.
As Robert points out in his articles, there is the major element to all the rigamarole bandied about by Bloomberg and others who demand we transition from natural gas and nuclear, and mandate our source for electricity be solar, wind and hydro. But, missing is still the matter of the grid. But, a star has been found to solve all the issues surrouding the mishmash of multiple sources of energy plowing onto a creaky old grid. And, that will be AI. White papers tell us it is the promise of AI in the power grid. AI will manage the complexity and manage power to optimize energy consumption, and do all kinds of spiffy stuff. Sounds like a winner, only one thing is missing. In small print it is mentioned that AI consumes large amount of energy itself and all these spiffy ideas need just a tweak to solve just one detail. The trillions needed to update the grid to realize the benefits of emerging technologies.
So, in the end, I wonder if Bloomberg and the many big hitters like Earthjustice, Environmental Defense Fund, Sierra Club, the Tides group, and all others standing on the high mountain to transition to zero-emissions nirvana, will stop discounting facts about the elephant in the room - the U.S. grids and wake up to reality.
You're fighting with both hands tied behind your back. As long as you accept the myth that anthropogenic CO2 from burning organic (hydrocarbon) fuels is endangering the Earth, and therefore "clean energy" is "needed," you have given away the match.
There is no empirical evidence that anthropogenic CO2 has any measurable effect on atmospheric temperatures. Paleoclimate evidence demonstrates that CO2 FOLLOWS atmospheric temperature, so there is no causation.
Once it is clear that the Climate Delusion is just a popular (if elite) mania, the idea of 'transitioning' to unreliable, inefficient, expensive wind and solar electricity will wither on the vine. But you have to make the case!
What CO2 does is old science. Joseph Fourier figured out something in the atmosphere kept the earth warmer than the moon 200 years ago - Eunice Foote then narrowed it down to CO2 in 1856. you look up in a text book, like the boiling point of water at sea-level. Good luck to any conspiracy theorists trying to debunk this! Variations of this next test can be replicated in any decent physics lab on the planet. https://youtu.be/SeYfl45X1wo Mythbusters even ran a backyard test that confirmed it.
Do a little maths - and the CO2 is trapping 4 Hiroshima bombs worth of heat every second - but spread out across the entire planet. The basic physics of how CO2 traps heat is known. Where that extra heat goes and what it does to our longer term climate and shorter term weather cycles has been modelled, looks dire, and we should know better. There’s a few wrinkles - as we’re talking about the interaction between ocean cycles and the atmosphere - but generally - bad. We see receding glaciers and ice caps, seasons changing, plant shoots and grubs and the birds that eat those grubs all sprouting and hatching earlier in the wrong sequence - messing up ecosystems. The atmosphere carries 7% more water vapour for every degree warmer it is. So dry areas dry faster, and rainy areas dump deluges. Famines and floods. It also moves weather patterns, with some rain systems moving out to sea and missing the land. It interacts with ENSO weirdly - sometimes throwing Australia into a freakish drought like the 2019 fires, and other times throwing us into years of La Nina - with freakish floods. Sydney had more rain in one weekend than all the other capital cities get in a YEAR! Weather fluctuates - much like a young toddler playing in the bath water and making waves. Measure the waves and they go up and down, equalising over time. Climate is the fact that someone left the tap on. The last few decades have not been normal. We’re breaking all the records. People that deny this are … well, deniers. But they’re gradually getting older and dying out. Younger minds in school have the time to see CO2 trap heat - and learn how this works. Older minds are … older. Oh well. It’s always been the way.
BINGO. Don't give them an inch. Reject the Human Induced Climate Change (HICC) argument on it's face.
Bingo! Deny the science! Burn all those fossil fuels and don't give a second thought to the future of your children and grandchildren - let alone the fact that burning these particulates costs us $5 TRILLION a year in additional health costs (WHO) and that wind and solar are now cheaper than gas and coal - and doubling every 4 years! Forget the fact that Scientific American showed just by Overbuilding wind and solar across a large area the law of large numbers can reduce storage to a tiny fraction. Forget that the world has 100 TIMES the potential off-river pumped hydro sites it needs to store all the power we need to store. Forget that the USGS says there's 22 MILLION tons of lithium reserves (and heaps more resource if it becomes economical) and at 8kg per EV, that's TWICE what we need to replace 1.4 billion cars. Forget the fact that sodium EV's are a thing - and we're NEVER going to run out of sea-salt! Forget the fact that sodium grid-batteries are a thing, and only need to work for the first hour or two before the pumped hydro kicks in. Forget the fact that HVDC powerlines are so efficient they only lose 1.6% per 1000 km so solar on the equator could hypothetically run a base at the north pole and only lose16% of the power! No - Sue Don Nim hates it all - doesn't like clean air - doesn't care about $5 TRILLION in extra health costs globally and the millions of deaths per year from pollution - and ultimately doesn't care if civilisation RUNS OUT of oil and gas and coal before we've actually got a plan B. Don't give them an inch!
Except - here's a shock for you. The IEA says there will be so many EV's by 2028 that oil demand will peak and start to decline after there, and by 2030 total FOSSIL FUEL demand will peak! They've got their eye on the trends - and can see the solar and wind going exponential.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/10/iea-energy-peak-fossil-fuel-demand-by-2030
Too late Sue - you're trying to stop a tsunami of clean energy by wiggling your finger at it!
Good luck with that.
A lawfirm pretending to be an NGO. Another in a list of thousands of reasons to deeply audit NGOs, force disclosure of funding, and demand that the vast amount of money received ges to actually help people. Lawyer payola to lawfare for genocide resulting from climate bs is not a helpful goal.
Edward Well said!
Robert - I think you're on the right track by looking at the various environmental NGOs. In particular the drama about the Brandon Shores coal plant in Mayland. In your Power Hungry Podcast you asked the question of whether the Sierra Club will tear up the contract for the sake of reliability...
Tax the NGOs!
Great Stack Mr. Bryce! I'm a complete layman but really enjoy learning about the energy sector. Open question along those lines - Do the NGO's employ real honest to goodness engineers...or is it primarily lawyers?
The Climate Cult is a huge power grab that is being sold like a religion. A religion can never be subject to logical criticism.
Outstanding content as usual Robert. 🙏
How will this unreliability affect Ontario Canada’s grid as we’re closely tied?
From Ontario as well:) The quick answer is yes. Here's a pretty good run down on the full situation: https://youtu.be/Aybn-MnQfsQ?si=kfLt7Wlu6mW2SRgt from Decouple.
Ontario recently did a bunch of things to stabilize the grid. The biggest was to refurbish and revitalize it's Nuclear assets.
Also, on a much smaller scale, it brought online 3 gas fired, fast response plants to cope with the leftovers from the McGuinty/ Wynn FIT program.
I’m just a simpleton however, it will add to more instability. Potential rolling brown outs & blackouts. Thankfully Ontario has announced some new nuclear projects that should help stem the tide.
Alberta has spent a fortune on Renewables and there are many days when it is contributing zero energy. They were smart to put a 6 month moratorium on any new Renewable projects. Renewables only add instability & none of the climate alarmists want to discuss how to dispose of them when their lives end after 20-25 years and the vast majority are anti nuclear. 🤦
I posted this article to one of the critics yesterday. Still no response. https://twitter.com/NickH_1/status/1765742534230204918
Perhaps there are security or other concerns, but I would enjoy seeing a calendar of your speaking events. It's always a pleasure to hear you speak.
It sounds trite, but it is sincerely nice to listen to someone who isn't lying to me.
Good to see the flow of money and how much. A lot of people ask me why would they be so darn wound up and shoving it on us? They just can't believe it's not for the wild pastel bunnies.
One irony of the sole focus on CO2-bad-rhetoric is that the genuine air and water pollutants from burning coal - mercury, particulate, sulfur - get overlooked by the mainstream. By design or not I don't know. Perhaps if the nat gas and nuclear folks focused on those actual pollutants there may be more 'wins' against the climatists and catastrophists. Coal has advantages for sure but there's only trade-offs in energy.
It should be hard to believe that energy regulators have never heard anyone speak who has a different point of view…but it isn’t. Public utility commissions are filled with appointees of corrupt politicians. They don’t know anything about the industry and they don’t care. Jerry Brown once appointed his brother in law to the CA commission… the guy was previously a public defender in Oakland.
I love to hear Robert speak, and It tickles me he made the enemy elites mad. Hopefully a few sparks will find some dry kindling and do some good.
I think physics will eventually win, but so much damage is getting done. The transition is luxury thinking. We can’t afford it and even if we could it wouldn’t work.
Excellent post, Robert. Your ten slides deserve wide dissemination. I touch on some of the points in my new Substack GreenNUKE. The article is titled, "Why is Grid Inertia Important?" https://greennuke.substack.com/p/why-is-grid-inertia-important Thank you for motivating me to start this Substack. (Substack seems to be having issues with signing in today. I had to sign in even though I had already subscribed.)
Add NJ to figure 5