“In 2009, LS Power, a New York private equity company, tried to build a power line over Minidoka. Thankfully, the Department of the Interior moved LS Power’s Southwest Intertie Project (SWIP) power line away from the park. Today, LS Power seeks approval from the Bureau of Land Management to build the giant Lava Ridge wind project on federal land within two miles of the park’s visitor center.” — Friends of Minidoka

In Episode 329 of District of Conservation, Gabriella speaks with two leaders behind the “Stop Lava Ridge” movement, Diana Nielsen and Dean Dimond, to discuss the significance of the proposed Lava Ridge Wind Project in Southern Idaho. This proposed project is endorsed by the Biden administration as part of their goal to generate 25 gigawatts of onshore wind energy by 2025. This interview ties with today’s release of Conservation Nation Episode 12 on the very subject. Tune in to learn more!

Virtue-signaling politicians don’t want wind turbines like Lava Ridge near them. They let others pay the price of their energy fantasies. //

If all goes according to plan, Magic Valley Energy will soon be installing up to 400, 740-foot-tall wind turbines, 485 miles of new roads, miles and miles of transmission lines, and buildings filled with half-ton battery modules on upwards of 197,000 acres at Lava Ridge in southwestern Idaho.

The company is named after a beautiful valley that soon won’t be nearly so magical.

The acreage is equal to 15 percent of Delaware, and the turbines, at 740 feet tall, are larger than the Washington Monument — an appropriate comparison because the project is being advanced in cooperation with a climate-obsessed Biden administration determined to replace fossil fuels with “clean” energy.

For the administration, saving the planet from computer models of manmade climate disasters is far more important than saving land, scenery, habitats, wildlife, and ways of life from the ravages of wind and solar installations.

In fact, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, along with other federal agencies, is preparing to expedite wind and solar permit approvals, no matter the effects on Mother Earth. They’ve even decreed that bald and golden eagles killed by wind turbines are merely “incidental takings” — unintentional losses due to otherwise lawful activities — and thus irrelevant in permitting decisions. Nor do they consider the incomprehensible amounts of mining (in faraway lands with lax environmental standards) required to produce the metals, minerals, and concrete those installations will need.

U.S. Department of Energy released the below-linked article that discusses the utility of "droop" or frequency/voltage-based regulation to manage active & reactive power flows (respectively) without the need for communications between power sources. If put it briefly, the author suggests that with droop control they can avoid the need for an EMS for a hybrid microgrid site. https://cleantechnica.com/2022/10/03/microgrids-for-anyone/ //

Let me start by agreeing that the droop control technique is an essential tool in any modern Microgrid control strategy. Not because it's the “be all and end all” of control methods, but rather it’s a very effective fallback strategy. No Microgrid control system supplier worth their weight in salt, wants to deliver a system that cannot manage communications failure events and whilst redundant communications are a solution, droop control is superior in terms of cost-benefit outcomes. //

Whilst the utility of this technique is apparent, the point that I return to is this is by no means a complete solution offering. A holistic Hybrid Energy Management system will provide:

1. Overall power management of both dispatchable energy sources and loads
2. Coupling and decoupling from grid tie-in point including support of:
   • Re-synchronisation
   • Seamless transition during network disturbances
   • Import/Export and Network firming functions.
3. Quality of Service management - ensuring the microgrid provides grid quality power (or better), to energy off-takers at all times.
4. Energy Shifting – utilising renewable energy collected during the day to offset peak consumption during the night; and
5. Microgrid Optimisation both in terms of:
   • Minimising levelized cost of energy (LCoE) in isolated systems; and/or
   • Maximising return on investment potential for grid connected systems.

The net takeaway is this – not only are we far more progressed in terms of control methodology for hybrid microgrids, but the cost of ownership is significantly less than what most, including the article writer believe possible.

For the week of December 12th to 19th, 2022, the state of South Australia (home to 1.8 million people and ComAp Australia’s head office) had its entire state’s energy supply generated from renewable energy. This is not just a significant milestone for South Australia (SA), but also clear indicator of the pace in which renewables have become integral to Australia’s national power system. As recently as 2020, it was then considered exceptional for renewables to power SA’s demand for an HOUR, so to have this leap to a week within two years is quite incredible. Better yet, it is predicted renewable energy (backed by firming storage) will be able to exclusively supply the state for up to a month by early 2023! 

An important new study in the journal Energy (Weißbach et. al. 2013, paywalled) focuses on energy return on investment (EROI, or sometimes ERoEI), which is the ratio of electrical energy produced by a given power source to the amount of energy needed to build, fuel, maintain and decomission that power plant. //

Here's the idea in a nutshell: in the US, a kWh of energy (unweighted) costs about 10 cents but it produces about 70 cents worth of GDP, a ratio of 7 to 1. //

But the big winners in non-fossil energy are run-of-river hydro (Weißbach allows a 100 year plant lifetime, which may be generous) and nuclear (at a 60 year plant lifetime, in line with other studies). And by the way, this is one reason Weißbach's study is better than some earlier works: he includes plant lifetime in his computations, which can make a big difference. Wind turbines, for example, are subjected to large physical stresses which limits their lifetime to about 20 years, both in this study and according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. In effect, you have to build a windfarm two or three times over during the lifetime of a nuclear plant, and that adds up.

Two cases were analyzed for coal, one hard coal (EROI 29, EMROI 49) and one brown coal (EROI 31, EMROI 49). These were averaged to an EROI of 30 as shown. In the US we have plenty of hard coal reserves and don't use brown coal. Also, the authors omitted from this study the energy cost needed to transport coal, apparently because that varies by country. Using EIA data, this amounts to 244 KJ per tonne-km for rail transport. So in the US, where a lot of coal is moved from mines in Wyoming to end users far away, a typical 1000 mile trip would lower the EROI of coal from 29 to 28, while EMROI remains unchanged at 49. //

So if you ever wondered why climate scientists like James Hansen are pro-nuclear, this is one reason. Yes, wind is fine if it can be grid-buffered against a non-fossil generating source. And absolutely we need more hydro, especially run-of-river hydro where it's feasible. But there are limits to the amount of river where it is feasible. So if we want to eliminate fossil fuels from electricity production (and we do), and if we want to manage that transition so that it doesn't hurt the economy (and we do), nuclear has to be part of the mix. And in fact, it has to be a much bigger part of the mix than it has been in the past. In the next part of GETTING TO ZERO, I will address the safety issues of nuclear power in detail, but for right now what you need to know is that even after accounting for latent deaths from Chernobyl (and non-deaths from Fukushima), nuclear is still one of the safest forms of energy.

Finally, if you'd like to take a detailed look at the calculations, Weißbach's spreadsheet can be found on Google Docs. I used the spreadsheet to compute some of the numbers above.

Wood gas vehicles: firewood in the fuel tank

During the Second World War, almost every motorised vehicle in continental Europe was converted to use firewood. Wood gas cars (also known as producer gas cars) are a not-so-elegant but surprisingly efficient and ecological alternative to their petrol (gasoline) cousins, whilst their range is comparable to that of electric cars. Rising fuel prices and global warming have caused renewed interest in this almost-forgotten technology: worldwide, dozens of handymen drive around in their home-made woodmobiles.

Wood gasification is a proces whereby organic material is converted into a combustible gas under the influence of heat - the process reaches a temperature of 1,400 °C (2,550 °F). The first use of wood gasification dates back to 1870s, when it was used as a forerunner of natural gas for street lighting and cooking.

In the 1920s, German engineer Georges Imbert developed a wood gas generator for mobile use. The gases were cleaned and dried and then fed into the vehicle's combustion engine, which barely needs to be adapted. The Imbert generator was mass produced from 1931 on. At the end of the 1930s, about 9,000 wood gas vehicles were in use, almost exclusively in Europe.

Second World War

The technology became commonplace in many European countries during the Second World War, as a consequence of the rationing of fossil fuels. In Germany alone, around 500,000 producer gas vehicles were in operation by the end of the war. //

"Park an Italian sports car next to a wood gas car and the crowd gathers around the woodmobile. Nevertheless, wood gas cars are only for idealists and for times of crisis. //

Another problem of wood gas cars is that they are not particularly user-friendly, although this has improved compared to the technology used in the Second World War. See the second part of this pdf document (page 17 and further) for a description of what it was like to drive a wood gas car back then:

"...experience at the Wurlitzer organ could be a distinct advantage".

When it comes to choosing which types of energy technology to prioritize and build in order to address climate, we need to stay focused on low-carbon sources, or what we now call “clean” energy. Many people may not realize that all of what is “renewable” is not “clean.”

Renewable energy is defined to focus on types of energy that come from “sources that cannot be depleted or which naturally replenish,” an appealing concept but actually a red herring with respect to carbon emissions. Clearly, some types of renewables are low and non-carbon-emitting energy sources, such as wind and solar. But some renewables are highly emitting sources of energy, namely bioenergy, which includes burning ancient forests, also called biomass energy. //

Lately, the large and growing bioenergy industry has been seen as contributing massively to deforestation. Yet, bioenergy has the burnish of appearing to be “green” because it’s made the political cut and is included as “renewable.” This means that companies cutting down trees have benefitted from the subsidies and incentives intended to increase clean energy. Fortunately, many are starting to be more discerning and are specifically excluding ecologically-damaging types of bioenergy as unsustainable and not worthy of prioritization with climate-focused subsidies.

Politics, lobbying and powerful ideologic preferences are what have brought the term “renewable” into vogue in the first place. This also means that what’s included as renewable differs from place to place. California specifically excludes large hydro power but includes small hydropower stations. Not because large hydro emits more carbon or doesn’t rely on the renewing resource of rain but rather because California policymakers decided dams posed too great an ecologic impact and didn’t want to prioritize building more large dams. In other places, renewables includes large hydro. The fact that the definition of what’s renewable varies from place to place, contributes to confusion and lack of clarity. When folks in California hear that there are Canadian provinces running almost entirely on renewable energy, they may think that means they’ve succeeded in building out lots of wind and solar. In fact, it’s predominantly large hydro—which isn’t counted as “renewable” in California.

Nuclear’s Contributions to Clean Energy are Sidelined

The biggest problem by far with using the term renewable, however, is that it is invariably defined to exclude nuclear power. This causes the entire nuclear industry—which for decades has produced more clean energy than all other low-carbon sources combined—to be discounted and even sometimes excluded. Not surprising since nuclear has long been maligned and even demonized. Even so, the omission of nuclear as a renewable energy source, whether intentional or not, causes significant problems for those trying to use good data to address climate change.

We cannot make good decisions about how to invest in new energy generation if we don’t get good information about where our clean energy is coming from. Most energy agencies now include reports on levels of Renewables, because they are politically potent. They don’t create reports based on carbon intensity (such as by grouping the low-carbon energy technologies and the high-carbon energy technologies). Thus, people are not shown that their nuclear power plants are contributing to the clean energy being produced. This may induce them to think that nuclear is carbon-emitting—which it isn’t. They will think biofuels are a good thing for the climate—they aren’t. They will also think we have less clean energy than we actually do and agree to pay for more renewables. In certain areas, nuclear power plants are not even credited with producing carbon-free energy that counts towards the region’s clean energy goals! //

We need clear and accurate information on climate impacts as we make increasingly large investments in transitioning our energy systems, commiting us to energy projects that will have 20, 30, 50-year and longer life-spans. For this, we definitely should avoid anything that hints at ambiguity and stick with what we mean: clean energy. So, in 2023, let’s work to reject use of the word “renewable” and demand that we focus on the distinction that does matter: carbon intensity. Without clear language and understanding, neither the public nor those negotiating our future world agreements can be expected to make good decisions.

The cold blast this holiday weekend across the eastern half of the US exposed the fragility of power grids as soaring heating demand spiked peak total loads to record high in many areas while supplies were tight. Grid operators and utilities told tens of millions of Americans to conserve power -- some conservation efforts are still ongoing Christmas morning. Christmas Eve was a mess for many customers in the Southeast states, including North Carolina and Tennessee, as utilities implemented rolling blackouts.

Fossil fuels and nuclear power generation mix across the eastern US saved grids from collapse. Unreliable renewables, such as solar and wind, were just a tiny fraction of the power mix.

What's idiotic is the decarbonization campaign to decommission nuclear and fossil fuel generators for renewables. This weekend's grid chaos is a wake-up call. America has a severe grid problem sparked by the 'green' movement. Thank the climate alarmist, woke corporations, and progressive politicians for ushering in so-called green reforms that have transformed once-stable grids into a third-world country prone to rolling blackouts anytime temperatures fall below freezing.

Readers have been well informed of our view that advanced nuclear reactors will play a critical role in decarbonizing electricity in the US by providing carbon-free energy, and it is a much better form than solar and wind assets.

Germany ranks third in the world for installed wind power capacity. In 2020, almost a quarter of the country’s energy came from wind, and the government has pledged to double that by 2030, designating 2 percent of Germany’s landmass to become wind farms. //

Turns out the researchers were spot-on. In a study of 2,055 German adults, they found a strong correlation between harboring a conspiracy mentality and being unlikely to vote for wind turbines near your community. This correlation held regardless of if the referendum on building the turbines was proposed by supporters of the wind farm or its opponents. And in another study of 2,155 other German adults, a conspiracy mentality was far and away the biggest predictor of voting against a wind farm, much more so than age, gender, education level, or being politically right-wing.

When Al Gore, John Kerry and the New York Times gang up on someone, you know a political hit is on. That’s what happened last week to World Bank President David Malpass, for the sin of not turning the international lending institution into an arm of Democratic Party policy on climate change. //

The Journal points out that bringing third-world countries into the first world…

…requires energy, which today is still most efficiently and affordably provided by fossil fuels. Yet Mr. Kerry recently cautioned African leaders against investing in long-term natural gas production, as if they have an alternative if they want to develop.

This is an indulgence in a place like California, which is affluent enough to pay twice what its neighboring states do for energy. //

…it amounts to condemning countries in Africa and much of the developing world to more decades of poverty. //

Kerry may even be consigning poor countries to needless hunger from rising prices and perhaps a global shortage of natural gas for fertilizer. Climate monomania is easier to preach with a sea-side view from a bluff in Martha’s Vineyard than it is from a village with unreliable electricity in the Congo.

As the world is painfully learning, the technology doesn’t exist for a rapid transition to a world without fossil fuels. //

Lectures from Mr. Kerry are hard to take when he travels around the world by carbon-spewing private jet or government aircraft. As for Mr. Gore, he has been predicting climate doom for decades even as he invests in green energy backed by copious government subsidies. And what do they have to show for their decades of climate advocacy? They hold conferences and set unrealistic emissions targets. But the U.S. emissions reductions in recent decades are almost entirely the result of the expansion of natural gas production that the climate lobby wants to shut down.

But grid operators, utilities and clean energy advocates say it doesn’t make sense to blame electric vehicles for the soaring electricity demand during the recent heat wave. And in the future, as utilities make needed adjustments for widespread EV uptake, there’s no reason why transportation electrification should overburden the country’s grid, they said.

In fact, experts see EV batteries as part of the solution.

They help to reduce planet-warming emissions and can add needed flexibility to electric utilities that are sure to come under more strain as global temperatures continue to rise.

Garrett Fitzgerald, senior director for electrification at the Smart Electric Power Alliance, called the backlash over California’s charging delays “undue criticism or panic.”

“The grid can handle it, we’re taking the necessary steps, but we’re just at the very beginning of putting those processes and programs in place,” he said. “A future grid will absolutely be able to handle a future demand of transportation electrification.”

That success will hinge on utilities being proactive in planning for millions of additional EVs on the roads in the coming decades. It will also take some adjustments, experts said. EV owners and utilities must take advantage of up-and-coming charging technologies that will save the grid from unnecessary stress. //

Adding capacity to the grid would be necessary with or without transportation electrification. Perhaps a more important consideration, experts and utilities said, is load management—utilities’ ability to accommodate fluctuations in energy supply and demand in real time to avoid outages.

“It’s less about being able to meet the energy consumption required for EV charging, and it’s much more about meeting the demand for that electricity, and specifically when, where and at what power we’re providing that demand,” said Fitzgerald of the Smart Electric Power Alliance. //

Managed charging, for example, allows utilities to remotely start or stop vehicle charging to accommodate grid conditions, with the vehicle owner’s consent. It can be particularly useful for companies that operate many electric vehicles that need to be charged but not necessarily all at once.

Time-of-use pricing encourages EV owners to charge their vehicles during off-peak hours, rewarding them with lower rates for doing so. And vehicle-to-grid or vehicle-to-home technology can allow certain EVs to sell electricity from their battery back to the grid during times of need, or to power a home during an outage. //

Improvements to the grid are seen by experts as necessary not only to prevent power outages from high demand, but also to help the U.S. meet its climate goals by facilitating the transition away from gas-guzzling vehicles. The stakes are high.

“If we don’t get this right, we are not going to be able to reduce our climate emissions, we are not going to be able to mitigate transportation pollution, and we are not going to be able to actually serve this increased demand from people around the country who want to play their part in being part of the solution,” said Baldwin.

If California, our most populous state, was its own nation, it would rank as the world’s fifth largest economy and boast the highest average household income (outside a handful of “countries” like Monaco or Luxemburg). And, yet, the governor is begging its citizens to stop using their appliances, turn off their lights, and keep their thermostats at a stifling 78, lest they suffer more rolling blackouts, like some junior mandarin in a third-world country. //

California is following in the footsteps of Germany, which over the past ten years closed down most of its nuclear power plants and engaged in a national decarbonization of the economy — energiewende. When reality hit, Germany, and thus the rest of the EU, was compelled to start relying heavily on Russian natural gas as it struggled to transition. Then Russia attacked Ukraine. Rather than falling back on its world-class, environmentally friendly, forward-looking nuclear-energy program, the Germans must now contemplate rationing and historically high prices. If they can avoid this fate, it will only be because the industry has turned back to coal. //

Continued restrictions on reliable, relatively cheap, and portable energy are not only inconvenient, but they also damage growth and opportunity. Decarbonization is objectively immoral. //

Democrats are rigging the market to force you to buy a car that has a 200-mile reach and uses erratic and expensive energy when you already have increasingly efficient models in your driveway and tens of billions of easily accessible barrels of offshore fossil fuels here at home — and much more around the world. We have centuries’ worth of the stuff waiting in the ground. Which gives us enough time to come up with some better ideas. Because, sorry, transitioning away from modernity and into windmills, choo-choo trains, folding fans, and candles isn’t progress, it’s regression. And California is leading the way.

On Monday, about 47% of California’s electricity was generated by natural gas while 19% was produced by imports. Just 21% of electricity generated was produced by renewables, including solar and wind power.

The trend continued Wednesday with natural gas power far outpacing other power sources. (Emphasis mine.)

Daniel Turner, founder and executive director of energy group Power The Future, is not impressed:

This is a man-made energy failure and the blame lies squarely with President Biden, Gov. Newsom and every other proponent of this green failure. California is the poster child of the green movement and the state’s struggling families are paying the price.

Make no mistake, the lights will stay on in the governor’s mansion, Silicon Valley and Hollywood, but not in working-class neighborhoods because those who pushed this failure always unplug from the consequences. California’s power failures are nothing less than pure insanity that should be shunned, instead President Biden wants to export them to every state. //

Kevin Kiley @KevinKileyCA
·
US House candidate, CA-03
It appears the only thing that staved off rolling blackouts yesterday was a frantic emergency text telling everyone to stop using power. This is not a sustainable strategy.
1:30 PM · Sep 7, 2022

Susan Shelley @Susan_Shelley
·
How's the electric grid doing in California? It's high noon, and renewables are only producing 32.4% of the state's electricity needs. State officials want to close the gas-powered plants that are currently providing 45.1% of the electricity that keeps the lights on.
3:06 PM · Sep 6, 2022 //

As of 2:50 p.m. Pacific Time, that figure is even more drastic, with natural gas dependence at 47.8 percent and renewable dependence at 29.1 percent.

As policymakers have shifted focus from pandemic challenges to economic recovery, infrastructure plans are once more being actively discussed, including those relating to energy. Green energy advocates are doubling down on pressure to continue, or even increase, the use of wind, solar power, and electric cars. Left out of the discussion is any serious consideration of the broad environmental and supply-chain implications of renewable energy.

As I explored in a previous paper, “The New Energy Economy: An Exercise in Magical Thinking,”[1] many enthusiasts believe things that are not possible when it comes to the physics of fueling society, not least the magical belief that “clean-tech” energy can echo the velocity of the progress of digital technologies. It cannot.

This paper turns to a different reality: all energy-producing machinery must be fabricated from materials extracted from the earth. No energy system, in short, is actually “renewable,” since all machines require the continual mining and processing of millions of tons of primary materials and the disposal of hardware that inevitably wears out. Compared with hydrocarbons, green machines entail, on average, a 10-fold increase in the quantities of materials extracted and processed to produce the same amount of energy.

This means that any significant expansion of today’s modest level of green energy—currently less than 4% of the country’s total consumption (versus 56% from oil and gas)—will create an unprecedented increase in global mining for needed minerals, radically exacerbate existing environmental and labor challenges in emerging markets (where many mines are located), and dramatically increase U.S. imports and the vulnerability of America’s energy supply chain.

As recently as 1990, the U.S. was the world’s number-one producer of minerals. Today, it is in seventh place. Even though the nation has vast mineral reserves worth trillions of dollars, America is now 100% dependent on imports for some 17 key minerals, and, for another 29, over half of domestic needs are imported.

Among the material realities of green energy:

• Building wind turbines and solar panels to generate electricity, as well as batteries to fuel electric vehicles, requires, on average, more than 10 times the quantity of materials, compared with building machines using hydrocarbons to deliver the same amount of energy to society.

  • A single electric car contains more cobalt than 1,000 smartphone batteries; the blades on a single wind turbine have more plastic than 5 million smartphones; and a solar array that can power one data center uses more glass than 50 million phones.

  • Replacing hydrocarbons with green machines under current plans—never mind aspirations for far greater expansion—will vastly increase the mining of various critical minerals around the world. For example, a single electric car battery weighing 1,000 pounds requires extracting and processing some 500,000 pounds of materials. Averaged over a battery’s life, each mile of driving an electric car “consumes” five pounds of earth. Using an internal combustion engine consumes about 0.2 pounds of liquids per mile.

• Oil, natural gas, and coal are needed to produce the concrete, steel, plastics, and purified minerals used to build green machines. The energy equivalent of 100 barrels of oil is used in the processes to fabricate a single battery that can store the equivalent of one barrel of oil.

• By 2050, with current plans, the quantity of worn-out solar panels—much of it nonrecyclable—will constitute double the tonnage of all today’s global plastic waste, along with over 3 million tons per year of unrecyclable plastics from worn-out wind turbine blades. By 2030, more than 10 million tons per year of batteries will become garbage. //

All machines wear out, and there is nothing actually renewable about green machines, since one must engage in continual extraction of materials to build new ones and replace those that wear out. All this requires mining, processing, transportation, and, ultimately, the disposing of millions of tons of materials, much of it functionally or economically unrecyclable. //

Over the past century, there have been two significant developments. First, the U.S. has not expanded domestic mining, and, in most cases, the country’s production of nearly all minerals has declined. Second, the demand for minerals has dramatically increased. These two intersecting trends have led to significant transformations in supply-chain dependencies. Imports today account for 100% of some 17 critical minerals, and, for 29 others, net imports account for more than half of demand. //

For a snapshot of what all this points to regarding the total materials footprint of the green energy path, consider the supply chain for an electric car battery. A single battery providing a useful driving range weighs about 1,000 pounds.[15] Providing the refined minerals needed to fabricate a single EV battery requires the mining, moving, and processing of more than 500,000 pounds of materials somewhere on the planet (see sidebar below).[16] That’s 20 times more than the 25,000 pounds of petroleum that an internal combustion engine uses over the life of a car.

“I just dissected the Inflation Reduction Act,” Mills said. “Frankly, IRA’s ‘clean energy’ provisions will make you spoil the Earth to save it.”

“I’m listening,” POTUS grumbled.

“I brought you my paper, “Mines, Minerals, and ‘Green’ Energy: A Reality Check.” [1]

“Intriguing,” POTUS mumbled, as he thumbed through its 19 pages and 127 footnotes.

Mills told POTUS that the solar panels, windmills, and electric vehicles that he and congressional Democrats crave would mean mining, refining, shipping, and dumping that would scar the planet but barely nick expected global warming.

“Compared with hydrocarbons, green machines entail, on average, a tenfold increase in the quantities of materials extracted and processed to produce the same amount of energy,” Mills said.

“Continue,” POTUS replied.

• “A lithium EV battery weighs about 1,000 pounds,” Mills explained. “Such a battery typically contains about 25 pounds of lithium, 30 pounds of cobalt, 60 pounds of nickel, 110 pounds of graphite, 90 pounds of copper, about 400 pounds of steel,” plus aluminum and plastic.

• These substances must be clawed from the earth, Mills noted. This battery’s components would be purified from 12.5 tons of lithium brines and ores of cobalt (15 tons), nickel (3 tons), graphite (a half ton), and copper (12.5 tons). Isolating those commodities involves excavating 250 more tons of dirt and rock.

• Dig, baby, dig: “The mining of cobalt for batteries will need to grow 300% [to] 800%,” Mills said. “Lithium production … will need to rise more than 2,000%,” he added. “The mining of indium … will need to increase as much as 8,000%.”

• That requires power. “The energy equivalent of 100 barrels of oil is used in the processes to fabricate a single battery that can store the equivalent of one barrel of oil,” Mills said. POTUS’ eyes widened.

• Energy-efficient pipelines carry 75% of oil and 100% of natural gas. For green machines, Mills observed, “Using trucks instead of pipelines entails a 1,000% increase per ton-mile in the embodied transportation of energy materials.”

• When green machines die, “[n]early all of them will eventually show up in waste dumps,” Mills noted. A decommissioned 100-megawatt wind farm’s 20 turbines will pollute “fourfold more nonrecyclable plastic trash than all the world’s [recyclable] plastic straws combined. There are 1,000 times more wind turbines than that in the world today.”

Too bad these efforts barely tame global warming.

Copenhagen Consensus Center founder Bjorn Lomborg calculates that the Inflation Reduction Act would decrease expected global temperatures by 0.0009 degrees Fahrenheit to 0.028 degrees Fahrenheit in 2100. Imagine lowering a thermostat from 72 degrees Fahrenheit to 71.9991 degrees Fahrenheit or (best-case scenario) 71.972 degrees Fahrenheit.

“Come on, man!” POTUS snapped. “We have this under control.”

Mills tilted his head in curiosity. From the bottom desk drawer, POTUS pulled a footlong rod.

“This was carved from a chair leg at Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, America’s birthplace,” POTUS whispered. “Watch this.”

POTUS stood at his desk and waved the stick over his head. “Presto!”

[1 https://www.manhattan-institute.org/mines-minerals-and-green-energy-reality-check]

Solar Panels surface area required to power the world:

how much surface area for solar panels vs. surface area of fossil fuel or nuclear power stations?

The calculations show that a 100 percent renewable electricity grid is affordable. At current costs, it’s slightly more than 8 cents per kilowatt-hour. The results also show that achieving 100 percent renewable energy using battery storage is significantly more expensive than using power-to-gas technology.

Instead of the batteries becoming the next great American success story, the warehouse is now shuttered and empty. All the employees who worked there were laid off. And more than 5,200 miles away, a Chinese company is hard at work making the batteries in Dalian, China.

The Chinese company didn't steal this technology. It was given to them — by the U.S. Department of Energy. First in 2017, as part of a sublicense, and later, in 2021, as part of a license transfer. An investigation by NPR and the Northwest News Network found the federal agency allowed the technology and jobs to move overseas, violating its own licensing rules while failing to intervene on behalf of U.S. workers in multiple instances. //

Department of Energy officials declined NPR's request for an interview to explain how the technology that cost U.S. taxpayers millions of dollars ended up in China. After NPR sent department officials written questions outlining the timeline of events, the federal agency terminated the license with the Chinese company, Dalian Rongke Power Co. Ltd. //

Forever Energy, a Bellevue, Wash., based company, is one of several U.S. companies that have been trying to get a license from the Department of Energy to make the batteries. Joanne Skievaski, Forever Energy's chief financial officer, has been trying to get hold of a license for more than a year and called the department's decision to allow foreign manufacturing "mind boggling." //

The idea for this vanadium redox battery began in the basement of a government lab, three hours southeast of Seattle, called Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. It was 2006, and more than two dozen scientists began to suspect that a special mix of acid and electrolyte could hold unusual amounts of energy without degrading. They turned out to be right.

It took six years and more than 15 million taxpayer dollars for the scientists to uncover what they believed was the perfect vanadium battery recipe. Others had made similar batteries with vanadium, but this mix was twice as powerful and did not appear to degrade the way cellphone batteries or even car batteries do. The researchers found the batteries capable of charging and recharging for as long as 30 years.

Two recent studies have shown that electric vehicles have more quality issues than gas-powered ones and are not better for the environment. //

J.D. Power has produced the annual U.S. Initial Quality Study for 36 years, which measures the quality of new vehicles based on feedback from owners. The most recent study, which included Tesla in its industry calculation for the first time, found that battery-electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrid vehicles have more quality issues than gas-powered ones. //

According to J.D. Power, owners of electric or hybrid vehicles cite more problems than do owners of gas-powered vehicles. The latter vehicles average 175 problems per 100 vehicles (PP100), hybrids average 239 PP100, and battery-powered cars — excluding Tesla models — average 240 PP100. Tesla models average 226 PP100. Given the average cost of an electric car is roughly $60,000, about $20,000 more than the cost of a gas-powered car, it seems owners of EVs didn’t get the value they deserve. //

But the same supply-chain disruption affected makers of gas-powered vehicles. Yet the three highest-ranking brands, measured by overall initial quality, are all makers of gas-powered vehicles: Buick (139 PP100), Dodge (143 PP100), and Chevrolet (147 PP100). //

Besides quality issues, a new study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that electric vehicles are worse for the environment than gas-powered ones. By quantifying the externalities (both greenhouse gases and local air pollution) generated by driving these vehicles, the government subsidies on the purchase of EVs, and taxes on electric and/or gasoline miles, researchers found that “electric vehicles generate a negative environmental benefit of about -0.5 cents per mile relative to comparable gasoline vehicles (-1.5 cents per mile for vehicles driven outside metropolitan areas).” //

“The comparison between a gasoline vehicle and an electric one is really a comparison between burning gasoline or a mix of coal and natural gas to move the vehicle,” according to The American Economic Review. //

most of today’s EVs are powered by lithium-ion batteries. Due to heavy government subsidies, China dominates the global production of lithium-ion batteries and their precursor materials, especially graphite. China’s graphite production has notoriously contributed to significant pollution in the country. //

A typical electric car needs 110 pounds of graphite, and a hybrid vehicle needs around 22 pounds. Ironically, the U.S. government’s EV subsidies end up subsidizing China’s highly polluted production. So if you think you are doing your part of saving the planet by driving an EV, think twice. We also know from past experiences that pollution in China ends up harming the rest of the world.