Wall Street Journal opinion piece today reports solar and wind energy costs a bundle. Trick is they do not always produce energy but cost estimates assume their maximum production rate. Article says utilities are force to make up for not producing hours with purchased or fossil fuel power. Result is those with highest renewable percentage are also more costly. National average is abt $0.15/kwhr. In Germany make up power can cost as much as $1/kwhr.
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Gee, you’d think somebody would have done the math up front. (And not lied about it)
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I think the idea that intermittency especially for wind and solar means backup capacity is required has been discussed here before. WSJ seems to agree.
Another reason to object to green energy. Is net zero still possible? Are we willing to foot the bill?
I can not read the WSJ article because it is behind a pay wall.
The WSJ opinion piece is written by the climate change denier Bjørn Lomborg who is not an economist, engineer or scientist. He is a political scientist. Do not get bamboozled by his smoke and mirrors stories.
After the publication of The Skeptical Environmentalist, Lomborg was formally accused of scientific dishonesty by a group of environmental scientists, who brought a total of three complaints against him to the Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty (DCSD), a body under Denmark’s Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MSTI). Lomborg was asked whether he regarded the book as a “debate” publication, and thereby not under the purview of the DCSD, or as a scientific work; he chose the latter, clearing the way for the inquiry that followed.[8] The charges claimed that The Skeptical Environmentalist contained deliberately misleading data and flawed conclusions. Due to the similarity of the complaints, the DCSD decided to proceed on the three cases under one investigation.
In January 2003, the DCSD released a ruling that sent a mixed message, finding the book to be scientifically dishonest through misrepresentation of scientific facts, but Lomborg himself not guilty due to his lack of expertise in the fields in question.[20] That February, Lomborg filed a complaint against the decision with the MSTI, which had oversight over the DCSD. In December, 2003, the Ministry annulled the DCSD decision, citing procedural errors, including lack of documentation of errors in the book, and asked the DCSD to re-examine the case. In March 2004, the DCSD formally decided not to act further on the complaints, reasoning that renewed scrutiny would, in all likelihood, result in the same conclusion.[8][21]
The original DCSD decision about Lomborg provoked a petition[22] signed by 287 Danish academics, primarily social scientists, who criticized the DCSD for evaluating the book as a work of science, whereas the petitioners considered it clearly an opinion piece by a non-scientist.[23][24] The Danish Minister of Science, Technology, and Innovation then asked the Danish Research Agency (DRA) to form an independent working group to review DCSD practices.[25] In response to this, another group of Danish scientists collected over 600 signatures, primarily from the medical and natural sciences community, to support the continued existence of the DCSD and presented their petition to the DRA.[23]
The WSJ is featuring an opinion by a political scientist which makes no sense. See my reply to Paul.
Almost all ire GW pronouncements are uttered by non-climate scientists palmed off as climate scientists and the public loves them. You can lack credentials but still read and understand (like yourself ha ha ) and you can have credentials and still be wrong. Your analysis is vapid and predictable
Also, I have heard Lomborg talk. He does not deny GW/CC. In accepts it. He just admits what most climate scientists and the IPCC also admit but of course social meming forbids coverage of: It’s not a catastrophe or existential threat. It can be managed without committing suicide.
NOTE: I do not “follow” Lomborg. Maybe he’s changed his mind?
As far as scientific dishonesty accusations: Laughable. The accusers ado teh same thing unless they are not human. THREE (3) whole examples of inexactitudes. OK, yes I guess he must be wrong about the sky being blue and water being wet too. And, as a non-climate-scientist you’d have to spot him the possibility for being lied to BY climate scientists. Where else would he get his information from?
Non-climate scientists do not get get passed off as climate scientists. Scientists and engineers who have been trained in Physics, Chemistry, Thermodynamics, Heat Transfer, Fluid Mechanics, and many other physical sciences can understand what climate scientists are researching and publishing. Climate scientists are not wrong. Their results have been verified by actual atmospheric data being gathered around the world.
There are always some minority groups of science trained skeptics and non-science trained quakes that disagree with science facts. Mostly because they are being bought off by the fossil fuels industry who are scared to death of going out of business. EXXON climate scientists and engineers predicted back in the 1970s that burning fossil fuels in massive quantities would result in CO2 concentrations increasing in the atmosphere and resulting in global warming and climate change.
In conclusion your understanding of the subject is vapid.