“Coal, natural gas, nuclear, and hydroelectric power are essential because they are predictable and dispatchable resources; conversely, renewables produce power intermittently and are less valuable as a generation resource…. To reach true grid parity, an energy source should be able to produce affordable electricity as well as dependably meet electricity demand.”
The idea of cost-competitiveness for renewable energy resources—called “grid parity”—is misleading and incomplete without considering reliability. Yet recent reports are pushing grid parity as an imminent reality. For example, a February 2016 study from GTM Research assessed that electricity from residential solar has attained grid parity in 20 states.
How an electricity source functions on the grid is more important than mere cost-competitiveness. To reach true grid parity, an electricity source should provide affordable, reliable power on a dependable basis.…
Continue ReadingThe Competitive Enterprise Institute’s annual worldwide celebration of human progress is tomorrow, March 19th. Turn on the lights and celebrate the wondrous ability of natural gas, coal, and oil to overcome Obama energy policy and forced renewable penetration to keep the lights on in despite-all fairly affordable way.
As CEI explains:
… Continue ReadingHuman Achievement Hour is a time to celebrate innovations that help us all live better, fuller lives. Human Achievement Hour is also the counter-event to Earth Hour, where participants symbolically renounce the environmental impacts of modern technology by turning off their lights for an hour. We believe it’s a misguided effort that ignores how access to affordable energy helps people around the world.
How to celebrate with us? Share your favorite human achievement or innovation that makes your life easier!
“For a long time to come—until all energies used to produce wind turbines and photovoltaic cells come from renewable energy sources—modern civilization will remain fundamentally dependent on fossil fuels.”
– Vaclav Smil, “What I See When I See a Wind Turbine (March 2016).
Vaclav Smil, distinguished professor emeritus at the University of Manitoba, has published 37 books and almost 500 papers on “the fields of energy, environmental and population change, food production and nutrition, technical innovation, risk assessment, and public policy.”
One of the great energy experts of our age, Smil’s output easily rivals whole US Department of Energy laboratories which, incidentally, are easy candidates for elimination under a new political regime.
This month, Dr. Smil’s published a short piece in IEEE Spectrum titled “What I See When I See a Wind Turbine.”…
Continue Reading