Politicians, activists and lobbyists worried about a “climate crisis” and determined to compel a rapid transition from fossil fuels to “clean, renewable” energy seem to think it’s a slam-dunk process.
They believe they can simply implement laws, regulations and executive orders, provide hundreds of billions in subsidies, and voila! The “Green” energy transformation will proceed on schedule with no supply-chain disruptions, blackouts, escalating costs or other economic and environmental consequences.
Any opposition to enormous wind and solar construction, they reason can be easily addressed by doling out huge taxpayer subsidies as a carrot. And if that fails, they will use eminent domain and other impositions of federal power as a stick, counting on the media all the while to give them cover.
These assumptions, however, are becoming increasingly dubious. Public backlash is growing, and serious technical difficulties are proving difficult to correct, even at the cost of trillions of dollars.
At the heart of the problem is the stability and reliability of an aging electrical grid that was never designed for a total Green New Deal-style overhaul.
An August 2023 report from the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) underscores the scope of these difficulties.
Very soon, NERC says, America will no longer have most of the coal, gas or even nuclear power stations that have served it well for decades. Most were located close to end users, required only short transmission lines, and provided affordable electricity almost 24/7. Shortsighted policy decisions are closing them far more rapidly than even unreliable wind and solar can theoretically replace them.
The new onshore and offshore wind and solar installations will be much farther from customers, will thus require tens of thousands of miles of new interconnected transmission lines, in addition to numerous transformers, control rooms and other specialized technologies.
Energy News Beat