Rank Innumeracy On The Cost Of Electricity From Renewables
February 21, 2023/ Francis Menton
A recurring theme here at Manhattan Contrarian is that the “smart” people who seek to run the world are not really very smart. They may have gotten high scores on the SATs, and they may have attended fancy universities, but when it comes to practical knowledge of how the world works they are often complete idiots.
A special case of this phenomenon is that the highest gurus of high finance — the people who are most trusted to have mastered basic numeracy, and who get to pass out trillions of dollars of public funds — are completely innumerate.
I come to this issue today as a result of the recently-completed briefing in CHECC v. EPA, the DC Circuit case challenging EPA’s “finding” that atmospheric CO2 is a “danger to human health and welfare.” The group challenging the Endangerment Finding, the Concerned Household Electricity Consumers Council, asserts standing on the ground that increasing the amount of solar and wind “renewable” generation on the grid necessarily drives up consumer electricity bills. The reasons why this is so have been discussed many times on this blog. Perhaps the most detailed discussion appears in the Articles section, titled “The Disastrous Economics Of Trying To Power an Electrical Grid With 100% Intermittent Renewables.” This subject does require some thought to understand, but certainly no advanced math. The main point is that intermittent renewables cannot power a grid on their own, and as their grid penetration increases, large amounts of some combination of backup, storage, and overbuilding are required, all of which add to the cost of the system. All of this is easily demonstrated with basic arithmetic. Anyone who successfully finished the sixth grade should grasp it immediately.
https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2023-2-21-rank-innumeracy-on-the-cost-of-electricity-from-renewables
