Excellent article. I would have thought they would have used a lot more solar, instead of all that wind. I would imagine the island has a good solar resource.
Manhattan contrarian also did a piece on a South Korean island of Gapa that tried to be 100% renewable with 174kwpk solar, 250kwpk wind & 3.9MWh of battery storage to supply their 230kw peak demand, 142kw avg demand. But they have also failed in their goal, achieving typically around 40% of their demand. Very expensive electricity.
Hawaii is a good example of a large island that is pro-renewables all the way but has failed miserably with their expensive dirty electricity. And they have a mandate to achieve 100 percent renewable energy by 2045. A geothermal paradise with excellent wind & solar resource, Hawaii gets 62% of its electricity from expensive diesel generation, 27% wind and only 10% geothermal.
Hawaii would be an excellent location for an SMR or two. But they have a nuclear ban, that requires a 2/3rd vote by both houses to overturn.
No matter how much they fail, Greenies just stubbornly double down on their failures.
Makes one think that they don't really care about succeeding, because their REAL goal is deindustrialization and DeGrowth, which is the one thing they really have succeeded at.
I like Tulsi and RFKjr a lot, but when it comes to energy issues they're both deluded, bought into the wind/solar scam. But I guess you will always be hard pressed to find a politician for which you are 100% in agreement on everything.
There's a couple of places in Australia that tried go totally renewable. One of them is King Island which is a very windy place but no matter what they tried they couldn't get rid of the diesel generators. Then there was Alice Springs which is sited in the middle of a very sunny desert and is very isolated. Again they couldn't do without the diesel generators and as well suffered numerous blackouts when passing clouds tripped the whole system.
One additional thought - You know I DO deal with energy professionals who really do they know what they are doing, and I am in the process of reviewing a proposal for an engineering study by a well known EPC firm. Its a genuine pleasure to read. Organized, coherent, filled with accurate information and required caveats. Logical methodology, reasonable approach. So this kind of ability and expertise is all over Canada, but its not getting to the places it needs to go. Places like the RMI, for various reasons, have made it into the inner circle, are taken far too seriously, displacing the ACTUAL correct info and advice from real practicing energy pros.
Richard this is great. As usual, correct and thorough. As you say this is a great case study because its an isolated system with fixed boundaries, so easy to study - while at the same time, its NOT isolated regarding its material inputs.
What I struggle with in all this, is that your analysis is perfect, and yet at the same time, its not all that hard. In fact for anyone who has an engineering degree, it is downright simple (not to take anything away from your work). Its really just about energy balances.
How is that we can never seem to have experienced professional level discussions about even fairly basic stuff like in the public sphere? I think of the decisions and planning that went into WW2, and I wonder, how has our public discourse on engineering related matters become so degraded?
I also think there is some truth in the old adage that "easy times make weak men", and the consumer boom since the 1970s has left a couple of generations "blind" to the things that make life easy. Infrastructure, farming, energy etc... so blind that they can rationalize doing away with the foundations, or to mix metaphors, cut off the branch they are sitting on. Maybe a good gauge of future winners vs losers would be the degree to which engineering is valued. The Chinese have huge cohorts of engineer-civil-servants, the Russians have something like 30% of graduates being STEM (vs 7% in the US) (I'm making these numbers up from memory, but its in that ball-park).... If you want to get very depressed read The Parasitic Mind by Gad Saad....
I’m not an engineer but I often wonder when these projects are planned and approved, who are the adults in the room. When I realise there are no adults in the room, I hope that like in the HCA fairytale a young kid blurts out that the emperor is naked, all the townsfolk laugh and the illusion is broken. It’s a comforting story until you remember the proper ending - the emperor is at first startled by the laughter but carries on walking more proudly than ever. No amount of ridicule will deflect our leaders on the path to destruction.
I think there are various possibilities/explanations. First to mind is that people work on small parts of the system and can make sensible "local" choices and this leads to emergent behaviour that is not necessarilly good (unintended consequences). Then there are people clearly acting way above their capabilities: Politicians and Activists (and often Journalists who "care" but don't understand). Then there are the outright grifters who understand and see how to exploit the above two categories. Most dangerous of all (to my mind) are the "gurus" who make hay by pontificating about the ease of the transition, that "it just needs the political will" that it will be "cleaner, greener and cheaper" etc etc. They create the mind virus that enables the others.
The article in the Guardian reporting on the statements of Chris Stark, the outgoing chief executive of the Climate Change Committee, is a shocking piece of contradictions and ignorance from someone who should know much better.
It is a classic example the Upton Sinclair quote “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
It primarily concerns semantics and the growing inconvenience of the term “net zero” but goes on to refer to his detractors in terms of “culture wars”, “populist response”, “culture warriors”. I like you, Richard, strongly disagree with his hoponomics but I certainly don’t identify myself with his dismissive description of “our type”. He blanks out contrarian views with labels steeped with connotations of our ignorance and belonging to the mob, as if it is below him to stoop down to respond.
He also says “We are talking about cleaning up the economy and making it more productive – you can call that anything you like,” Well, thank you, in that case I would call it a lie, as I would this ludicrous statement “The world that we’ll have in 2050 is extremely similar to the one we have now. “
Great article Richard, you must get it published in The Guardian!
The UK's Net Zero suicide is now "managed" by the illustrious Chris Stark and the even more credible Ed Miliband. Barbarians through the gates and into the top jobs...
Excellent article. I would have thought they would have used a lot more solar, instead of all that wind. I would imagine the island has a good solar resource.
Manhattan contrarian also did a piece on a South Korean island of Gapa that tried to be 100% renewable with 174kwpk solar, 250kwpk wind & 3.9MWh of battery storage to supply their 230kw peak demand, 142kw avg demand. But they have also failed in their goal, achieving typically around 40% of their demand. Very expensive electricity.
https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2016/8/16/how-much-do-the-climate-crusaders-plan-to-raise-your-cost-of-electricity
I also read about a Hawaian island that tried to do all renewables but has to back it up with diesel.
And highest electricity prices of any US state... (kind of normal for a remote island to be fair)
Hawaii is a good example of a large island that is pro-renewables all the way but has failed miserably with their expensive dirty electricity. And they have a mandate to achieve 100 percent renewable energy by 2045. A geothermal paradise with excellent wind & solar resource, Hawaii gets 62% of its electricity from expensive diesel generation, 27% wind and only 10% geothermal.
Hawaii would be an excellent location for an SMR or two. But they have a nuclear ban, that requires a 2/3rd vote by both houses to overturn.
No matter how much they fail, Greenies just stubbornly double down on their failures.
Makes one think that they don't really care about succeeding, because their REAL goal is deindustrialization and DeGrowth, which is the one thing they really have succeeded at.
Ha - We have to be careful what we say about Hawaii because Tulsi Gabbard is from there. But I didn’t know they were so foolish they banned nuclear.
I like Tulsi and RFKjr a lot, but when it comes to energy issues they're both deluded, bought into the wind/solar scam. But I guess you will always be hard pressed to find a politician for which you are 100% in agreement on everything.
True.
Thanks for sharing this - my guess is that it is possible to 100% a small island, but it would still be meaningless
Also - I guess that solar is too land-intense for a small Island, but I don't have any data on that.
There's a couple of places in Australia that tried go totally renewable. One of them is King Island which is a very windy place but no matter what they tried they couldn't get rid of the diesel generators. Then there was Alice Springs which is sited in the middle of a very sunny desert and is very isolated. Again they couldn't do without the diesel generators and as well suffered numerous blackouts when passing clouds tripped the whole system.
One additional thought - You know I DO deal with energy professionals who really do they know what they are doing, and I am in the process of reviewing a proposal for an engineering study by a well known EPC firm. Its a genuine pleasure to read. Organized, coherent, filled with accurate information and required caveats. Logical methodology, reasonable approach. So this kind of ability and expertise is all over Canada, but its not getting to the places it needs to go. Places like the RMI, for various reasons, have made it into the inner circle, are taken far too seriously, displacing the ACTUAL correct info and advice from real practicing energy pros.
Richard this is great. As usual, correct and thorough. As you say this is a great case study because its an isolated system with fixed boundaries, so easy to study - while at the same time, its NOT isolated regarding its material inputs.
What I struggle with in all this, is that your analysis is perfect, and yet at the same time, its not all that hard. In fact for anyone who has an engineering degree, it is downright simple (not to take anything away from your work). Its really just about energy balances.
How is that we can never seem to have experienced professional level discussions about even fairly basic stuff like in the public sphere? I think of the decisions and planning that went into WW2, and I wonder, how has our public discourse on engineering related matters become so degraded?
Steven, no offense taken - you are absolutely correct, this isn't rocket science.... yet here we are.
As if by coincidence El Gato Malo posted about this earlier today "The Meritocracy Downspiral" - and I think it has some reasonable points.
https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/the-mediocrity-downspiral
I also think there is some truth in the old adage that "easy times make weak men", and the consumer boom since the 1970s has left a couple of generations "blind" to the things that make life easy. Infrastructure, farming, energy etc... so blind that they can rationalize doing away with the foundations, or to mix metaphors, cut off the branch they are sitting on. Maybe a good gauge of future winners vs losers would be the degree to which engineering is valued. The Chinese have huge cohorts of engineer-civil-servants, the Russians have something like 30% of graduates being STEM (vs 7% in the US) (I'm making these numbers up from memory, but its in that ball-park).... If you want to get very depressed read The Parasitic Mind by Gad Saad....
Thanks, good comments and that reference link it first class. I have personally witnessed the A-B-C thing in real life and it is devastating.
I’m not an engineer but I often wonder when these projects are planned and approved, who are the adults in the room. When I realise there are no adults in the room, I hope that like in the HCA fairytale a young kid blurts out that the emperor is naked, all the townsfolk laugh and the illusion is broken. It’s a comforting story until you remember the proper ending - the emperor is at first startled by the laughter but carries on walking more proudly than ever. No amount of ridicule will deflect our leaders on the path to destruction.
I think there are various possibilities/explanations. First to mind is that people work on small parts of the system and can make sensible "local" choices and this leads to emergent behaviour that is not necessarilly good (unintended consequences). Then there are people clearly acting way above their capabilities: Politicians and Activists (and often Journalists who "care" but don't understand). Then there are the outright grifters who understand and see how to exploit the above two categories. Most dangerous of all (to my mind) are the "gurus" who make hay by pontificating about the ease of the transition, that "it just needs the political will" that it will be "cleaner, greener and cheaper" etc etc. They create the mind virus that enables the others.
The article in the Guardian reporting on the statements of Chris Stark, the outgoing chief executive of the Climate Change Committee, is a shocking piece of contradictions and ignorance from someone who should know much better.
It is a classic example the Upton Sinclair quote “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
It primarily concerns semantics and the growing inconvenience of the term “net zero” but goes on to refer to his detractors in terms of “culture wars”, “populist response”, “culture warriors”. I like you, Richard, strongly disagree with his hoponomics but I certainly don’t identify myself with his dismissive description of “our type”. He blanks out contrarian views with labels steeped with connotations of our ignorance and belonging to the mob, as if it is below him to stoop down to respond.
He also says “We are talking about cleaning up the economy and making it more productive – you can call that anything you like,” Well, thank you, in that case I would call it a lie, as I would this ludicrous statement “The world that we’ll have in 2050 is extremely similar to the one we have now. “
Great article Richard, you must get it published in The Guardian!
The UK's Net Zero suicide is now "managed" by the illustrious Chris Stark and the even more credible Ed Miliband. Barbarians through the gates and into the top jobs...
Also check out this excellent post from Eigen Values... laughable if it wasn't so catastrophic
https://davidturver.substack.com/p/stark-sends-out-sos
Good essay. Following a proposal (like the electrification of everything) to its logical conclusion is always a good way to test an idea.
Indeed, sometimes unintentionally ending up with "Reductio ad absurdum"
Now you have gone too far Richard :) . Poor Britain with its hierro 2.0 plan ... Great article as always!