Policy Implications Of The Energy Storage Conundrum - Highlighted Article

From: Manhattan Contrarian

By: Francis Menton

Date: December 13, 2022

Policy Implications Of The Energy Storage Conundrum

It occurs to me that before moving on from my obsession with energy storage and and its manifest limitations, I should address the policy implications of this situation.  I apologize if these implications may seem terribly obvious to regular readers, or for that matter to people who have just thought about these issues for, say, five minutes.  Unfortunately, our powers-that-be don’t seem to have those five minutes to figure out the obvious, so we’ll just have to bash them over the head with it.

Here are the three most obvious policy implications that nobody in power seems to have figured out:

(1) More and more wind turbines and solar panels are essentially useless because they can never fully supply an electrical grid or provide energy security without full dispatchable backup.

Here in the U.S. the so-called “Inflation Reduction Act” of 2022 provides some hundreds of billions of dollars of subsidies and tax credits to build more wind turbines and solar panels.  Simultaneously, the Biden Administration, directed by a series of Executive Orders from the President, proceeds with an all-of-government effort to suppress the dispatchable backup known as fossil fuels.  Does somebody think this can actually work?  It can’t.  

And then there’s the December 6 press release from the UN’s International Energy Agency, touting how renewable energy sources (wind and solar) are being “turbocharged” to provide countries with “energy security.”  The headline is: “Renewable power’s growth is being turbocharged as countries seek to strengthen energy security.”   Excerpt: (continue reading)

Policy Implications Of The Energy Storage Conundrum