It seems that one of the major objectives of the Biden administration, and I guess all Democratic politicians, is to dismantle everything that built this nation and made it great, and of course to spend us into oblivion without acknowledging any consequence for their actions.

The one warped initiative that may end up being the most painful is the push to shut off the energy spigot and somehow replace it with fairy dust and unicorn farts.

Yes, I’m talking about the fantasy that green “renewable” energy can replace our current, efficient and abundant fuel sources like coal, oil and gas – and, of course, our cleanest and greenest source of energy, nuclear, which the left will barely acknowledge.

It was a grave concern of various myopic gloom and doomers for decades – the fear that we will reach “peak oil” soon, that discovery and production will decline and eventually just run out. Then what do we do?

What Is Peak Oil?

Peak oil refers to the hypothetical point at which global crude oil production will hit its maximum rate, after which production will start to decline. This concept is derived from geophysicist Marion King Hubbert’s “peak theory,” which states that oil production follows a bell-shaped curve.https://0732bbbf681eec9c677770cb4cd8fcc5.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html

In the traditional vision of peak oil, the production decline accelerates as the challenge of extracting new reserves grows. This would put pressure on existing reserves that are drawing down overtime. If new reserves are not brought on line more rapidly than the existing reserves drawdown, then peak oil has been reached. Peak oil has been declared several times, but each deceleration has proved premature because of new extraction technologies like hydraulic fracturing and better surveying revealing previously undiscovered reserves. 

Peak Oil Supply and Demand

Because oil is a non-replenishing resource, there is a limit to how much the world can extract and refine. However, the scenario of total depletion is just one version of peak oil. In theory, peak oil can be brought on by the production squeeze—the drawdown as adding new reserves gets more challenging—but it can also be caused by a production decline when oil alternatives become more cost-effective, pricing oil out of the market, and making exploration and production unprofitable.

The theory has been around since 1956 and “refers to the hypothetical point at which global crude oil production will hit its maximum rate, after which production will start to decline.”

But somehow, we just keep finding massive reserves of that awful oil and gas, and ingenious ways to extract it, so consequently, we hear much less from the “peak oil” crowd. They were merely replaced by other gloom and doomers: the green weenies.

And that leads us to today, where hopes (and promises) abound that green energy can somehow replace all current fuel sources.

And how? Well with wind farms and solar panels. Woke big tech firms like Amazon, Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Apple are all touting their pledge to become 100% renewable in less than a decade. Of course, they all remain attached to the “dirty” power grid because they know that the wind doesn’t always blow and the sun doesn’t always shine.

But what about battery backup? Doesn’t that solve the wind and sun issue?

No – no it doesn’t. Not even close. If it were the solution, we’d have “net zero” emissions already. It’s been the problem all along for supposed green energy – how to store enough power to maintain electricity when the wind isn’t blowing and sun isn’t shining.

This was proven in 2018 when Tesla produced the largest battery cluster storage unit for a wind farm in South Australia. As it turns out, according to Sky News Australia, this massive battery storage unit would only be capable of powering the region for an estimated three minutes – off-peak maybe for as much as a whole hour.

Physicist and engineer Mark Mills, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, explained that it would take Tesla’s production plant in Nevada, the world’s largest battery manufacturing facility, 500 years to produce enough batteries to power the United States for a single day.

In fact, it is estimated that New York City alone would have to spend $3 trillion on batteries just to store enough energy for a seven-day period. That’s twice the metro area’s entire GDP.

But do you think this will deter New York leftists? Of course not. Money be damned – results be damned – reality be damned.

David Wojick writes in Townhall that, “New York City will soon be home to the world’s biggest industrial-scale battery system. It’s designed to back up the city’s growing reliance on intermittent ‘renewable’ electricity [wind farms]. At 400 megawatt-hours (MWh), this cluster of batteries will be more than triple the [aforementioned] 129 MWh world leader in Australia.”

However the city will need more than one cluster. A lot more!

Every summer the city is hit with one or more, shall we say still periods, “caused by stagnant high pressure systems called Bermuda highs. These highs often last for a week and because they involve stagnant air masses – and an absence of breezes [no more than 5 mph] – there is no wind power generation.”

Wind turbines require about 30 mph sustained winds to operate at full power and a minimum of 10 mph just to turn the blades at all.

So let’s do the math – something the leftist green warriors apparently haven’t done. Or maybe they have and are still so determined to rid us of planet-killing fossil fuel that they just don’t care.

New York City requires about 13,000 MW per hour (MWh) to run the city. If there is little to no wind for seven days, this equates to 168 hours they will need battery power.

13,000 MW times 168 hours equals 2,184,000 MWh.

Remember, the plan is to produce a single, massive 400 MWh battery cluster.

Ugh – more math. 2,184,000 MWh (the power needed for a week long summer doldrum) divided by a single 400 MWh battery cluster = 5,460.

This means that New York will only have to buy an additional 5,459 battery clusters to meet their needs during one Bermuda high week. That’s all!

Oh, my bad. I forgot to mention that each 400 MWh battery cluster will cost about $1.5 million per MWh. 400 X $1.5 million = $600 million per cluster times 5,460. And there’s the $3 trillion I mentioned earlier.

I’m all for innovation, but batteries are not the answer, nor is sole reliance on wind or solar. However, I doubt we’ll have much success convincing the greenies. After all, what’s another $3 trillion to them?

Money is no object. Spend it all – Biden will make more!

via WND

May 14, 2021 By Brent Smith

Batteries can’t do the job greenies think