Fossil Fuel Interests Ramp Up Their "Solar Makes Electricity More Expensive" Falsehood

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Within the run-up to Trump 2.0, the fossil gas business is trotting out its greatest weapons to assault renewable vitality and electric carswhich ought to come as no shock. They paid to get him elected and now they need to ensure that they get the utmost return on their funding. Each morning, I begin my day by perusing the emails that got here in in a single day. This morning there have been two in my “solar power” information alert that caught my eye. One was a headline from the Wall Street Journal that screamed, “Green Electricity Costs a Bundle. The data make clear — The notion that solar and wind power save money is an environmentalist lie.” The second was from a Koch Industries mouthpiece in Canada known as the Fraser Institute that proclaimed, “Solar and wind power make electricity more expensive — that’s a fact.”

Photo voltaic Bashing

The Wall Avenue Journal story started this manner: “As nations use more and more supposedly cheap solar and wind power, a strange thing happens: Our power bills get more expensive. This exposes the environmentalist lie that renewables have already outmatched fossil fuels and that the ‘green transition’ is irreversible even under a second Trump administration. The claim that green energy is cheaper relies on bogus math that measures the cost of electricity only when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing. Modern societies need around-the-clock power, requiring backup, often powered by fossil fuels. That means we’re paying for two power systems — renewables and backup. Moreover, as fossil fuels are used less, those power sources need to earn their capital costs back in fewer hours, leading to even more expensive power.”

Is it a coincidence that the Fraser Institute parrots the theme of the WSJ article? That’s a query we’ll depart our readers to determine for themselves. Right here’s what it needed to say:

“Wind and photo voltaic vitality are intermittent, which means they aren’t persistently accessible, so we’d like an alternate energy supply when there’s no daylight or wind given the present restricted capability to retailer vitality from photo voltaic and wind. So we should keep sufficient vitality capability in a parallel system, usually powered by pure fuel. Developing and upkeeping a secondary vitality supply ends in greater total vitality prices as a result of two vitality techniques value a couple of. Subsequently, when evaluating the prices of renewables, we should take into account the prices of backup vitality.

“Often, when proponents claim that wind and solar sources are cheaper than fossil fuels, they ignore these costs. A recent study published in Energya peer-reviewed energy and engineering journal, found that — after accounting for backup, energy storage and associated indirect costs — solar power costs skyrocket from US$36 per megawatt hour (MWh) to as high as US$1,548 and wind generation costs increase from US$40 to up to US$504 per MWh.”

Doing My Due Diligence On Photo voltaic

I used to be inquisitive about that research, which was achieved by Robert Idel when he was a Ph.D candidate at Rice. It simply so occurs that Rice is in Texas the place {the electrical} grid is operated by ERCOT. Readers might recall {that a} freakish winter storm paralyzed the Texas grid in 2022 — largely as a result of the pumps for the pipelines that offered methane to thermal producing stations failed. Afterwards, costs for electrical energy ballooned to astronomical heights and an in depth studying of Idel’s “study” exhibits these are the numbers he used to help his argument. It could be useful to know that Idel, Ph.D in hand, later put his experience in grid economics to develop into the director of public sale economics for Tripadvisor. It could even be useful to know that whereas Power could also be a peer-reviewed publication, the hyperlink Idel posted goes to a research with the phrases “Preprint — Not Peer Reviewed” on each web page. Hmmm.

When confronted with such outrageous and downright scary information from the likes of the Wall Avenue Journal and the Fraser Institute, I used to be at a loss to discover a solution to problem these preposterous claims in a means that’s science based mostly and rational. So I reached out to Mark Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering and the director of the Ambiance/Power Program at Stanford College. Mark is a longtime good friend of CleanTechnica who has authored a number of research and place papers that chart precisely how nearly each nation on Earth can transition to affordable renewable energy with no threat of blackouts.

He’s at all times prepared with a transparent, concise response, and at present was no completely different. Inside hours, Mark responded not solely with an information-packed electronic mail but in addition with a link to a study printed December 22, 2024, by the journal Renewable Power authored by himself and his colleagues that addresses exactly the questions raised by the WSJ and the Fraser Institute. Right here’s what he needed to say in response to my SOS for data.

Mark Jacobson Units The Report Straight

“Table 1 of the paper shows that 10 of the 11 U.S. states with higher fractions of their demand powered by renewables are among the 20 states with the lowest U.S. electricity prices. Six of the states are among the 10 states with the lowest prices. For example, from October 1, 2023 until September 30, 2024, South Dakota (ranked #1 in terms of its penetration of WWS* renewables relative to demand) provided 110% of the electricity it consumed from just wind (77.5%), hydro (30.1%), and solar (2.2%) yet had the 9th-lowest electricity price in the U.S. in March, 2024. South Dakota also produced another 16% of its electricity from fossil gas and 11.2% from coal so produced a total of 137% of the electricity it consumed but exported the additional 37%. Similarly, Montana (ranked #2) and Iowa (#3) supplied 86.5% and 79.4% of their demand with WWS but had the 8th and 12th-lowest prices. Only Maine (#7) had high prices (ranked 42nd).”

(*WWS in Mark Jacobson’s world refers to wind, water (as in hydropower), and photo voltaic.)

solar power — Determine 8, Jacobson et al. Credit score: Renewable Power journal

“California (#12) additionally had excessive costs (ranked #49). Nevertheless, it’s straightforward to point out California’s excessive costs don’t have anything to do with growing renewables. For instance, the identical paper in Determine 8 exhibits that the spot (instantaneous) value of electrical energy in California dropped by over 50% in the course of the interval of curiosity coated by the paper (March 7 to June 30) 2024 versus 2023 regardless of a giant development in photo voltaic, wind, and batteries in 2024 versus 2023. A decrease spot value means it’s simpler to match demand with provide. Spot costs dropped over 50% regardless of much more WWS on the grid in 2024 indicating renewables scale back the danger of blackout and make it simpler to match demand.

“So why are California’s electricity prices so high? They are high for several reasons that have nothing to do with renewables. These include high fossil gas prices (3rd highest in U.S.), utilities passing on to customers the cost of wildfires due to transmission-line sparks, the cost of undergrounding transmission lines to reduce such fires, the costs of the San Bruno and Aliso Canyon fossil gas disasters, the cost of retrofitting gas pipes following San Bruno, the cost of upgrading aging transmission and distribution lines, and the cost of keeping the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant open. In sum, available data indicate that increasing the share of WWS reduces electricity price throughout the US. When high prices occur, they are not due to WWS.”

So, these excessive electrical energy prices in California are attributable to causes aside from solar energy. Here’s a abstract of the remainder of the Mark Jacobson research printed in Renewable Power:

“This paper shows that the main grid in the world’s fifth largest economy was able to provide more than 100% of the electricity that it used from only four clean renewable sources – –solar, wind, hydroelectric, and geothermal — for anywhere from 5 minutes to over 10 hours per day for 98 out of 116 days during late winter, all of spring, and early summer, as well as for 132 days during the entire year of 2024, without its grid failing. The growth of solar, wind, and battery storage, in particular, resulted in fossil gas use dropping 40% during the 116 day period and 25% during the entire year of 2024 relative to 2023. In comparison with 2023, solar, wind, and battery capacities increased significantly, with batteries doubling in capacity. In fact, batteries met a peak of 12% of nighttime demand during the period of interest. The decrease, in just one year of 25% of gas use on the CAISO grid indicates the complete phase-out of gas is approaching. This also debunks the myth that gas must increase when renewables increase on the grid.”

Coincidence Is Not Causality

The error that each the Wall Avenue Journal and the Fraser Institute make of their articles is an instance of the form of trick apologists for the fossil gas business pull on a regular basis. As a result of the worth of electrical energy in Texas spiked after a winter storm, it should be due to these damned photo voltaic and wind farms (in truth, photo voltaic got here by for ERCOT massive time when the thermal producing stations failed). If the price of electrical energy in Germany has gone up, it should be due to photo voltaic, not as a result of Germany determined to take its nuclear energy plans off line with little prior planning.

Because the Trump Circus, Half Deux rolls into city, we should be ready for extra of those deceits. Will probably be “drill, baby, drill” 24/7 for the following 4 years until the members of Congress and the courts can keep in mind what their constitutional duties are. The one solution to struggle these types of assaults is with correct data. Due to Mark Jacobson, we now have the knowledge we have to counter the misrepresentations and disinformation campaigns the fossil gas crowd has in retailer. Information is energy. Use it correctly.