The US Department of Energy (US DOE) has published Decarbonizing the U.S. Economy by 2050: A National Blueprint for the Buildings Sector, which contains a link to the full study. The blueprint’s objectives include increasing energy efficiency, reducing on-site emissions and increasing demand flexibility. The following are some thoughts about a new construction decarbonized home.

The average US single family home contains approximately 2300 square feet of living space. The most efficient configuration for such a house is a two-story structure with approximately equal area on each floor. The structure would likely feature foamed-in-place insulation and limited window area. New homes built to match the DOE blueprint would be all-electric to eliminate on-site emissions. and the HVAC equipment and major appliances would be internet connected to maximize opportunities for demand management.

The home would provide approximately 500 square feet of South-facing roof with the roof pitch adjusted to maximize collection of solar energy.from approximately 380 square feet of solar collectors or solar roof shingles. The solar system would generate approximately 7,5 kW at peak, or approximately 25-50 kWh per day, depending on location weather and season of the year. Approximately 40 kWh could be stored in on-site batteries. An average single family detached home uses approximately 10,000 – 16,000 kWh per year, depending on location and appliances and equipment, or approximately 25 – 45 kWh per day. Note that all-electric homes in cold climates would experience maximum energy consumption in winter, when the output of the solar collectors was significantly reduced as the result of lower sun angle and shorter days.

The average home would have a 2-car garage, which would be equipped with chargers for 2 electric vehicles. The electric vehicles would add approximately 10 – 15 kwh each to the home’s daily energy consumption. However, the EVs would typically have to be charged from the on-site batteries or the grid, since they would likely be away during the day and require charging at night, when solar collector output is zero.

The availability of electric power from the on-site solar and battery systems would reduce the demand on the electric utility grid. However, the similarity between average daily solar collection and average daily usage suggests that grid backup would be essential to assure power reliability during periods of low solar energy generation, such as cloudy, rainy or snowy days. Therefore, the grid would require substantial storage capacity, since it would likely experience low solar availability during the same times as its customers.

The installed cost of solar collectors is approximately $2.50 per watt. Therefore, the installed cost of the 7.5 kW system described above would be approximately $19,000. The on-site storage batteries would add approximately $42,000. One suggested approach to funding the solar installation is utility ownership of the solar system and inclusion of the system costs in the utility ratebase. System ownership and maintenance costs would be added to the utility’s monthly service charge.

The availability of solar energy from on-site generation would reduce the average load on the “grid edge” facilities, including distribution wiring and transformers. However, the increased demand.imposed by EVs and electric heat pumps would likely increase grid demand during periods of low solar availability.

From: The Honest Broker - Substack

By: Roger Pielke Jr.

Date: September 2, 2024

Class is In - Know the Facts on Extreme Weather and Climate Module 3 of 3 Highlighted Series

Module 3: Extreme Event Case Studies

• U.S. hurricanes
• Global tropical cyclones
• U.S. heat waves
• Global and U.S. floods
• Africa floods
• Western and Central Europe drought
• Global and North American drought
• U.S. tornadoes

Class is In - Know the Facts on Extreme Weather and Climate Module 3 of 3 Highlighted Series

The US Department of Energy (US DOE) has published Decarbonizing the U.S. Economy by 2050: A National Blueprint for the Buildings Sector, which contains a link to the full study.

The first strategic objective in the Blueprint is: Increase building energy efficiency - Reduce onsite energy use intensity in buildings 35% by 2035 and 50% by 2050 vs. 2005.This objective poses two distinct challenges: identifying the ideal characteristics of carbon-free buildings, as the basis for establishing building codes which assure that newly constructed buildings will be and will remain carbon-free; and, identifying the changes which can reasonably be made to existing buildings to achieve the required reductions in on-site energy use intensity.

The logical first focus of these efforts is on the building envelope. For new buildings, all components of the building envelope are candidates for optimization, including slabs, foundations, framing, sheathing, glazing, insulation, interior surface materials, weatherstripping and roofing. Building orientation is also a significant consideration with regard to solar and wind exposure, with particular emphasis on the ability to collect and store solar energy at the site.

The DOE Blueprint assumes that all new buildings would be all-electric. Buildings would be wired for electric appliances and equipment, including heat pump HVAC systems, heat pump water heaters, electric ranges and ovens, electric laundry driers and EV chargers. Buildings would also be prewired for the installation of solar panels and storage batteries.

The larger challenge is the upgrading of the existing building stock. Ceiling insulation and crawl space insulation improvements are relatively straightforward and inexpensive, as are caulking and weatherstripping. Adding insulation to uninsulated exterior walls is also straightforward and relatively inexpensive. Improving the insulation values of already insulated exterior walls is problematic unless the exterior wall surfaces of the building are also being replaced. Replacing existing windows is expensive and might not be economically justified if the existing windows are double glazed.

Upgrading existing all-electric buildings with forced air HVAC systems should not require any modification to existing appliance and equipment connections. However, buildings with electric baseboard heating systems or steam or hot water radiator systems would require major modifications. Buildings with natural gas or propane appliances and equipment would require installation of electric appliance and equipment connections and might require upgrading of utility electric service and building power panels.

Almost all existing buildings would require installation of connections for EV charging systems. Buildings suitable for the installation of solar collectors would also require installation of the wiring and controls necessary to interface the solar collector system to the building power panels, on-site storage batteries and the utility service.

Achieving on-site emissions reductions would require replacing all natural gas, propane and oil appliances and equipment with electric appliances and equipment. This would likely be accomplished by banning the manufacture and sale of natural gas, propane and oil appliances and equipment and allowing the appliance and equipment replacement cycles to complete the process.

Tripling demand flexibility would likely require that all major appliances and equipment be internet connected to permit remote control of their operation; and, that all buildings be equipped with smart meters to facilitate creation of virtual powerplants. DOE envisions that this would also permit power to be drawn from EV batteries and solar storage batteries if required to support the grid.

As the decarbonization plan comes together, it is likely to include a combination of “carrots and sticks” intended to assure that the plan goals are achieved.

From: The Honest Broker - Substack

By: Roger Pielke Jr.

Date: September 2, 2024

Class is In - Know the Facts on Extreme Weather and Climate Module 2 of 3 Highlighted Series

Module 2: Making Sense of the Economics of Extreme Weather and Climate

• What is a “normalization” and why does it matter?
• Normalization example 1: Extreme Events in Europe, 1995-2019
• Normalization example 2: U.S. hurricanes: 1900-2021
• How do we know why disasters are becoming more costly?
• What the peer-reviewed literature says about normalized losses
• Making sense of “extreme event attribution”

Class is In - Know the Facts on Extreme Weather and Climate Module 2 of 3 Highlighted Series

Capacity factor:  The ratio of the electrical energy produced by a generating unit for the period of time considered to the electrical energy that could have been produced at continuous full power operation during the same period. (EIA)

The US EIA Electric Power Monthly uses the above definition for both fossil and non-fossil generators. However, the definition is more appropriate for intermittent renewable generators (wind and solar) than for other types of generation, since the output of these renewable generators have first priority on the grid. Their full output is used, except in circumstances when that output exceeds the contemporaneous demand on the grid. Therefore, their capacity factors are an accurate measure of what they are capable of generating “for the period of time considered”.

The output of wind and solar generators varies uncontrolled over timeframes of seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, month, seasons and years. In the shorter timeframes, output can vary from 100% of rating plate capacity to zero. Over the longer timeframes, wind generator output can vary from approximately 24 – 47% on a monthly basis and from approximately 32 – 35% on an annual basis. Over the longer timeframes, solar output can vary from approximately 12 – 33% on a monthly basis and from approximately 23 - 26% on an annual basis. These numbers represent national averages for existing generating facilities.

The non-renewable generators supplying the grid are operated to generate the difference between the contemporaneous grid demand and the output of the intermittent renewable generators. Therefore, their “capacity factors” are not weather limited, as is the case with the intermittent renewable generators, but rather are “utilization factors” controlled by the output of the intermittent renewable generators and the contemporaneous grid demand. Therefore, the “capacity factors” of the non-renewable generators decrease as the quantity of renewable generation supplied to the grid increases, with the exception of the nuclear generators which are typically operated at full capacity because the variable cost of the generation they provide is low.

Nuclear generators are typically capable of operating at rated capacity approximately 95% of the year, natural gas combined-cycle generators approximately 90% of the year and coal generators approximately 85% of the year. The portion of the year when they are unavailable is typically scheduled for the shoulder months of the year, when grid demand is well below peak demand.

The lower “capacity factors” (utilization factors) reported by EIA are directly driven by contemporaneous grid demand and indirectly driven by weather impacts on intermittent renewable generation output.

Ultimately, the Administration goal is to replace dispatchable fossil generation with renewable generation plus storage. Assuming that storage can be recharged at approximately the same rate that it can be discharged, the maximum capacity factor for storage would be approximately 50%, in situations in which storage was discharged and recharged daily. However, in situations in which longer duration storage was charged during periods of high monthly or seasonal renewable availability for use during periods of lower monthly or seasonal renewable generation availability, storage capacity factor would be significantly lower. That has economic consequences, since storage is currently significantly more expensive than renewable generation.

From: The Honest Broker - Substack

By: Roger Pielke Jr.

Date: September 2, 2024

Class is In - Know the Facts on Extreme Weather and Climate Module 1 of 3 Highlighted Series

Module 1 - What the IPCC AR6 Really Says About Extreme Weather and Climate?

1. Understanding key concepts and terminology
2. Climate variability and why it matters
3. Detecting changes in climate and “time of emergence”
4. IPCC AR6 on “time of emergence”
5. Climate policy, extremes, and “time of emergence”
6. IPCC on changes in extreme to 2040

Class is In - Know the Facts on Extreme Weather and Climate Module 1 of 3 Highlighted Series

It is broadly, though not universally, acknowledged that a Net Zero electric grid powered predominantly by intermittent renewable generation sources such as wind and solar would require support from dispatchable generation sources to “fill in the blanks” when wind and solar were unavailable or inadequate to meet the demands of the grid. These sources are generally referred to as Dispatchable Emission-Free Resources (DEFRs).

There are fundamentally two classes of DEFRs, those that depend on the output of the intermittent renewable resources for their operation and those which are able to function independent of the renewable generation.

The primary dependent DEFRs are storage batteries, pumped hydro dam complexes and Green Hydrogen systems. The primary independent DEFRs include hydroelectric dam systems, geothermal steam systems, biomass generation systems, wave energy systems, ocean thermal energy systems and small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs).

Battery storage systems and pumped hydro storage systems are currently in use on a limited basis. Green Hydrogen is being pursued as a possible long-duration storage solution to cope with weekly, monthly, seasonal and annual renewable availability variations. However, current battery storage is extremely expensive and most suitable for short-term storage (2-4 hours). Pumped hydro systems are also expensive, but have faced strong resistance from citizen groups in the US. Green Hydrogen is the most complex potential storage solution, requiring sea water desalination, water hydrolysis, hydrogen compression, transmission and storage and either combustion turbine or fuel cell power generation resources.

The dependent DEFRs require the availability of surplus renewable electricity to be stored for later use. Their charging cycles are parasitic to the renewable grid. Battery systems have the highest round-trip efficiency (~95%) and thus require the least surplus energy per unit of delivery capacity. Green Hydrogen has the lowest round-trip efficiency of the dependent DEFRs (~50%) and thus requires nearly twice as much surplus energy per unit of delivery capacity.

Hydroelectric dam systems, geothermal generation and biomass generation are currently in use on the US grid, although they are currently used primarily to supply baseload generation rather than as DEFRs. There is strong environmentalist resistance to new hydroelectric dams and strong pressure to remove existing dam systems. The availability of natural geothermal steam sources is limited, though there is significant potential for expansion into dry hot rock geothermal with the application of hydraulic fracturing. Biomass generation is of questionable environmental benefit and its expansion is likely to be limited. There are numerous RD&D programs underway to develop small modular nuclear reactors which would be inherently safe and have the ability to load follow, which would make them ideally suited as DEFRs, assuming that the environmentalist resistance to new nuclear generation can be overcome and system costs can be reduced.

The independent DEFRs do not require the availability of surplus renewable electricity. In fact, the independent DEFRs would not require the existence of intermittent renewable generation to support a reliable grid. They effectively render the renewable generators redundant; and, redundancy is expensive.

From: Climate Etc.

By: Dr. Joachim Dengler

Date: August 25, 2024

Extension of the linear carbon sink model – temperature matters

This post is the second of two extracts from the paper Improvements and Extension of the Linear Carbon Sink Model.

Introduction – The linear carbon sink model has a limitation

The relation between CO2 Emission and resulting concentration of the last 65 years can be best understood with a simple top-down model, where the net sink effect, which is the difference between anthropogenic emissions and atmospheric CO2 concentration growth, is modelled with a linear function of atmospheric CO2 concentration as shown in Figure 1. It is important to note, that the net sink effect represents in fact the sum of all absorptions – oceanic, land plants, and phytoplankton — reduced by the natural emissions.

Figure 1. The measured yearly sampled time series of anthropogenic emissions and yearly CO2 concentration growth. Both effects are measured in or have been converted to ppm in order to guarantee comparability. Their difference is the growing carbon sink effect, modelled linearly by 0.018*C – 5.2 ppm, where C represents the CO2 concentration time series.

The interpretation of the model is that the proportionality factor of the linear relation is a sum of the unknown proportionality factors of all contributing absorption processes, such as photosynthesis of land plants, photosynthesis of phytoplankton, and the physical ocean absorption.  It has been shown, that all these processes are approximately linear functions of atmospheric CO2 concentration, justifying that their proportionality factors can be added up.  The constant of the linear model is interpreted as the natural emissions.  Implicitly this assumes that natural emissions are considered to being approximately constant. (continue reading)

Extension of the linear carbon sink model – temperature matters

Candor : unreserved, honest, or sincere expression : forthrightness : freedom from prejudice or malice : fairness

The proposed global energy transition to “all-electric everything” and Net Zero by 2050 is not unfolding as we were told it would. Rather, it is unravelling as many of us thought it would. Rising energy costs, declining energy reliability, fuel selection mandates, reduced freedom of movement, dietary changes and other real and perceived issues have spawned resistance to the transition. The lack of candor regarding the transition is palpable. It is clearly time for climate candor.

The UNFCCC and the IPCC need to be candid about the continued existence and influence of natural climate variation and include research into the causes of natural variation in their programs.

The IPCC Working Group authors need to be fair in including all relevant research in their evaluations, not just research which supports the consensus narrative.

The consensed climate science community needs to cease its efforts to prevent publication of climate research which does not comport with the consensus narrative.

The IPCC Working Group authors need to insist that the IPCC Summary for Policymakers is a real summary of the conclusions of the Working Groups and not a gross exaggeration describing the current situation as a “crisis” or “existential threat” of an emergency.

The UN Secretariat needs to tone down the “earth on fire” and “boiling oceans” rhetoric intended to scare the population into precipitous action.

NOAA and NASA need to justify why and explain how they repeatedly “adjust” historic temperature anomalies.

The renewable generation developers need to tone down the “cheapest electricity” rhetoric, acknowledge that their generation systems are redundant capacity and will remain so until hey are combined with sufficient storage capacity to render their generating capacity dispatchable.

Electric utilities need to clearly communicate their need for dispatchable capacity sufficient to meet current and projected future peak demand.

Electric utilities and their ISOs and RTOs need to clearly communicate to both government and regulatory agencies that existing coal and natural gas generation cannot be shuttered until sufficient alternative dispatchable generation has been commissioned to replace their generating capacity and accommodate growth in expected peak demand.

Electric utilities and their ISOs and RTOs need to clearly communicate that additional natural gas generation capacity might be necessary to accommodate peak demand growth if dispatchable renewable generation capacity is not connected to the grid rapidly enough to meet growing demand resulting from “all-electric everything”

Federal and state agencies responsible for the energy transition need to acknowledge that the Dispatchable Emissions-Free Resources (DEFRs) they are relying upon to supplement renewable generation do not exist and are therefore not currently available for deployment. These agencies also need to acknowledge that the future availability of these DEFRs is uncertain.

Federal and state agencies also need to acknowledge that DEFRs, if and when they become available, render intermittent renewable generation redundant capacity to the extent that they are employed as backup capacity to renewable generation.

Federal and state agencies need to acknowledge that the promise of reduced energy costs resulting from the energy transition is a fraudulent fantasy.

While the above actions need to occur in the interest of candor, it seems highly unlikely that they will occur before there is a major grid outage followed by a self-serving “blame game”.

A repetition of the “Six Phases of a Project” appears inevitable.

From: The Honest Broker - Substack

By: Roger Pielke Jr.

Date: August 12, 2024

The Top Five Climate Science Scandals

Science is science because it is self-correcting. That means that when researchers go down a dead end path they turn around and look for another route. However, science in highly politicized situations can face obstacles to self-correction, meaning that it can be more difficult to change course when science gets off track. This is especially so when bad science becomes politically important.

That’s where climate science finds itself in 2024. Long time readers here at THB will know that climate change is real and poses risks. At the same time, the climate science community appears to have lost its collective ability to call out bad science and get things back on track. Today, particularly for the many new readers that THB has gained this year, I summarize the top 5 climate science scandals covered here at THB over the past few years.

I define a scandal as a situation of objectively flawed science — in substance and/or procedure — that the community has been unable to make right, but should.

Let’s jump right in . . .

5. The Interns Made a “Dataset” and We Used it for Research

I have recently documented how the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) — supposedly one of the top science journals — published a paper using a “dataset” cobbled together by some interns for marketing a now-defunct insurance company. There is actually no such dataset out in the real world — it is a fiction. The paper is the only normalization study purporting to identify a signal of human-caused climate change in disaster losses and thus has been highlighted by both the IPCC and U.S. National Climate Assessment. That context makes its correction or retraction politically problematic. When I informed PNAS about the fake dataset they refused to look at it and stood behind the paper. Read about the backstory and how PNAS stonewalled any reconsideration. (continue reading)

The Top Five Climate Science Scandals

The historical paradigm of the US electric industry has been “the energy you want when you want it.” Generation was adjusted to match contemporaneous demand as required.

The average demand on the US electric grid is approximately 40% of peak demand. Therefore, the majority of grid generation is largely underutilized for most of the year. The industry has also maintained a capacity reserve margin in excess of peak demand to assure adequate supply in the event of an unscheduled generator shutdown.

There would be significant economic benefit to increasing the load factor on the grid. The industry has taken numerous steps to attempt to encourage customers to shift their demand to hours when demand is lower. These steps have included a variety of Demand Side Management (DSM) programs coordinated with the state utility commissions. They have also included demand charges applied to consumption during high demand periods to encourage load shifting and the use of interruptible service contracts. Participation in DSM programs has been largely voluntary. However, demand charges were imposed in state utility commission approved rates. While these programs have had some effect, they have not significantly increased the load factor on the grid.

The combination of Net Zero by 2050 and “All-Electric Everything” by 2050 is imposing major changes on the electric industry and the electric grid. “All-Electric Everything” would require grid capacity to roughly triple, requiring massive investment in generation, transmission and distribution assets.

Government is incentivizing installation of intermittent renewable generation on the grid. However, most of this renewable generation capacity has not included the storage capacity necessary to render this capacity dispatchable. Therefore, as intermittent renewable generation capacity is added to the grid, dispatchable generating capacity must also be added to backup the intermittent capacity when it is not generating. The intermittent generating capacity is therefore redundant, in that the demand on the grid can be satisfied when it is unavailable or significantly diminished. Were the intermittent generating capacity dispatchable, it would not be redundant.

The projected major increase in generation, transmission and distribution investment has increased government and industry focus on increasing grid load factor to reduce the required investment. The recent US DOE “Decarbonizing the U.S. Economy by 2050: A National Blueprint for the Buildings Sector” focuses on several approaches to controlling grid demand to reduce investment requirements. Many of these approaches involve mandatory participation by electric customers, implemented through the use of “smart meters” and “The Internet of Things”. HVAC system, EV charging and major appliance usage would be curtailed or interrupted as required to reduce demand during periods of peak demand or low renewables availability.

DOE also encourages behind the meter, on-site generation and storage and contemplates drawing down on-site storage and EV batteries as required to support the grid. Participation would likely be enforced by requiring that HVAC, EV chargers and major appliances be internet connected to operate, to assure that they would remain subject to external control. DOE also suggests expanded use of Virtual Power Plants (VPP), in which groups of customers have their service interrupted to effectively free power plant scale capacity for other uses.

This appears to presage a paradigm shift from “the energy you want when you want it” to “the energy you want when it is available”. The involuntary aspects of these efforts would likely make them both more effective and less popular.

From: Master Resource

By: Robert Bradley Jr.

Date: July 30, 2024

Project 2025: Environmental Policy

“A more conservative EPA … will prevent unnecessary expenditures by the regulated community [and] … deliver savings to the American taxpayer. Improved transparency will serve as an important check … [to] deliver tangible environmental improvements to the American people in the form of cleaner air, cleaner water, and healthier soils.” ( – Heritage Foundation, Project 2025)

Last week’s post examined the energy section of the Heritage Foundation’s 922-page Mandate for Leadership: 2025. This post reproduces the environmental section of the same document (1,200 words) calling for a return to the basics of clean air and water–and away from the cancer of climate policy as ecological.

As explained below, EPA needs to prioritize achievable, definable environmental improvement, not engage in wasteful, futile climatism and forced energy transformation.

The challenge of creating a conservative EPA will be to balance justified skepticism toward an agency that has long been amenable to being co-opted by the Left for political ends against the need to implement the agency’s true function: protecting public health and the environment in cooperation with states. Further, the EPA needs to be realigned away from attempts to make it an all-powerful energy and land use policymaker and returned to its congressionally sanctioned role as environmental regulator.

Not surprisingly, the EPA under the Biden Administration has returned to the same top-down, coercive approach that defined the Obama Administration. There has been a reinstitution of unachievable standards designed to aid in the “transition” away from politically disfavored industries and technologies and toward the Biden Administration’s preferred alternatives. This approach is most obvious in the Biden Administration’s assault on the energy sector as the Administration uses its regulatory might to make coal, oil, and natural gas operations very expensive and increasingly inaccessible while forcing the economy to build out and rely on unreliable renewables…. (continue reading)

Project 2025: Environmental Policy

The capacity of the US electric grid has historically been designed to meet peak demand, with limited additional generating capacity equal to +/- 20% of peak demand or sufficient to replace the capacity of the largest generating unit on the grid in the event of an unscheduled shutdown. That additional generating capacity can be considered to be redundant in that it is necessary on peak only in the event of an unscheduled generator shutdown. The conventional generators on the grid have capacity factors of ~85% (coal), ~90% (gas CCT) and ~95% (nuclear). The maintenance and repair downtime of these generators is typically scheduled for the shoulder months of the year when grid demand is expected to be well below peak. However, unscheduled shutdowns do occur.

The grid generation transition currently underway is intended to replace existing coal and natural gas generation with intermittent wind and solar generation plus electricity storage. However, most of the wind and solar generating capacity which has been installed to date has not included the electricity storage capacity required to replace dispatchable coal and natural gas generation. Therefore, the wind and solar generator output is capable only of displacing output from coal and natural gas generators when the wind and solar generators are operating. Wind generators currently on the grid have capacity factors ranging from ~24 – 46.6% depending on location, mounting height and season. Solar generators currently on the grid have capacity factors ranging from ~12.5 – 33.2% depending on location and season.

Wind and solar generators which are not paired with sufficient electricity storage capacity to render them dispatchable are, by definition, redundant capacity since conventional dispatchable generating capacity must remain available to provide backup during periods when the wind and solar generators provide low/no output. Redundant capacity always increases costs because of increased investment in generation and transmission infrastructure. Redundant generation also increases costs by reducing the output of conventional generators, which causes their fixed costs to be allocated across lower generator output, thus increasing the prices necessary to maintain profitable operation. These higher prices, in turn, increase the wholesale power prices paid to the renewable generators.

Installing sufficient storage to render the currently installed wind and solar generation dispatchable would make a portion of the existing conventional generating capacity redundant, which would be essential if that capacity is to be decommissioned as envisioned by the Administration. Installing sufficient storage capacity to render all additional wind and solar generation capacity dispatchable would allow replacement of additional conventional generation as it became redundant. However, the pace of replacement of conventional generating capacity would have to be slower than the pace of commissioning of new dispatchable renewable generation to accommodate the demand growth expected as the result of the Administration’s push for “all-electric everything”.

It appears increasingly unlikely that the dispatchable generating capacity required to replace current conventional generation as well as to meet the consumption and demand growth expected to result from the transition to “all-electric everything” would be installed and operational by 2050. It appears even less likely that the result would be reduced energy costs.

From: Climate Realism

By: Isaac Orr and Mitch Rolling

Date: July 29, 2024

Why Nuclear is Cheaper than Wind and Solar

Editors’ Note: This guest post explains how nuclear is actually cheaper than wind and solar, contrary to what most renewables advocated claim. Climate Realism has explained previously how wind and solar are actually far more costly than activists claim, here and here, and that they are not as “green” as advertised, here.

Wind and solar supporters have a nasty habit of pretending that their preferred energy sources are the “cheapest forms of energy.” The problem, of course, is that they use unrealistic Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) estimates—see Cooking the Books for wind and solar—and they conveniently forget to mention the large system costs needed to reliably serve electricity demand using these unreliable energy sources.

That’s why, despite its high up-front capital costs, powering an electric grid with nuclear power is cheaper than using wind, solar, and battery storage.

Before we jump into the benefits of nuclear power, it’s important for our readers to understand that building a fleet of nuclear power plants will be very expensive, which will increase costs for ratepayers. A forced energy transition of any kind is going to increase costs inherently, and nuclear is no different.

If your main priority is reliable, low-cost power, keeping the existing coal and natural gas plants online and building new natural gas plants as needed will be the more affordable option. If decarbonizing the electric grid is your main priority, building new nuclear power plants will deliver a superior value to electricity customers, with reliable service at a lower cost than a grid powered largely by wind, solar, and battery storage. (continue reading)

Why Nuclear is Cheaper than Wind and Solar

The US government currently subsidizes utility scale wind and solar generation, transmission and electricity storage, in competition with coal, natural gas and nuclear generation. The government also subsidizes on-site residential and commercial solar generation installations in competition with the electric utility grid. In some cases, state government requires the utility and its non-generating customers to subsidize solar generating customers through net metering.

The government is planning to subsidize building efficiency improvements for residential and commercial buildings, including insulation and weatherstripping, window upgrades and appliance replacement. Subsidies for on-site solar would be expanded to include on-site storage.

Government also subsidizes light duty electric vehicles and their public charging infrastructure; and, would also subsidize on-site EV charging systems.

Subsidies – Undeniable Facts of Life

Subsidies distort markets by changing the relative transaction prices of competing options. For example, the subsidy offered for the purchase of electric vehicles reduces the transaction price of EVs relative to alternative ICE vehicles. This issue is compounded by the fact that manufacturers increase the prices of ICE vehicles to partially offset the losses incurred in the production and sale of EVs, raising the transaction price of ICE vehicle purchases.

Subsidies disadvantage competitors. In the example above, a manufacturer which does not produce EVs is forced to compete with the subsidized price of competitors EVs. Also, the subsidies available for wind and solar support installations which displace the generation output of existing coal and natural gas generation, reducing sales from those generators and increasing the prices at which their output must be sold to remain profitable.

Subsidies increase societal costs. The subsidies available for renewable generation encourage the expansion of renewable generation infrastructure, which is redundant capacity since it requires full capacity backup from dispatchable generation. This increases the total investment in generation capacity with no corresponding increase in generation output, thus increasing the cost of electricity.

Subsidies transfer costs from participants to non-participants. The subsidies available for residential and commercial on-site solar installations frequently include net metering, which transfers a portion of the utilities’ fixed costs of service to solar generators who sell surplus electricity back to the grid. This requires the utility to recover that portion of its fixed costs through increased rates which affect non-generating customers.

Subsidies encourage sub-optimal decisions by making the uncompetitive appear competitive. This has recently been demonstrated in the states which have eliminated simple net metering, which eliminates or reduces the transfer of utility fixed costs to solar generators, thus reducing the price paid to the solar generators by the utilities. The loss of this subsidy has had a dramatic negative impact on solar residential and commercial installations because the economics are no longer as attractive. This has also been demonstrated recently in Germany, where the elimination of EV incentives has caused a dramatic decrease in EV sales.

Government cannot subsidize everything forever. The grossly misnamed Inflation Reduction Act will likely result in an increase in the US national debt of approximately $1 trillion, which will be taken from others in the future.

"The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.", Ronald Reagan