From Watts Up With That?

Essay by Eric Worrall

Except when struck by hail, hurricanes, floods or ordinary wear and tear.

Apr 24, 2025

Energy, News

At energy security talks, US pushes gas and derides renewables

The US envoy to the IEA’s energy security summit criticised renewables, arguing that they cause power cuts and increase reliance on China

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While the leaders of the UK, European Union (EU) and ministers from Barbados and Colombia argued that clean energy provides energy security, ministers and officials from oil and gas producers like the US, Iraq and Egypt said that fossil fuels should remain part of the energy system.

But while his Iraqi counterpart boasted of using more renewables alongside oil and gas, the US Department of Energy’s Acting Assistant Secretary for the Office of International Affairs Tommy Joyce criticised renewables too, arguing that they cause power cuts and increase reliance on China.

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Von der Leyen argued that “clean homegrown renewables” strengthen the bloc’s resilience, while at the same time spurring new jobs and innovation. “As our energy dependency goes down, our energy security goes up. That is a lesson we have learnt in Europe,” she added.

Ministers from Barbados, Colombia, France and Spain echoed these messages. Colombia’s mines and energy minister Edwin Palma Egea saidclean energy would be cheaper in his country, where many people “have to choose between paying for energy or to eat – that is a dilemma for them”.

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Speaking to journalists in a briefing before the summit, energy experts said that relying on other countries for equipment like solar panels and wind turbines is preferable to relying on them for fuel. Ember’s Europe programme director Sarah Brown said importing fossil fuels involves “constant risk, constant cost” whereas importing machinery like solar panels is a one-off on both fronts.

…Read more: 

https://www.climatechangenews.com/2025/04/24/at-energy-security-talks-us-pushes-gas-and-derides-renewables/

Obviously there were no engineers in the room, or if there were they weren’t talking. Renewables are anything but one off investments. Alumina Aluminum components corrode, especially in salty environments, glass panels are blasted by sand and other abrasives, or ripped apart by storms, and plastics, like electrical wire insulation, crumble into dust, especially under the intense ultraviolet of tropical climates.

Barbados might think they are purchasing a one off investment – but they’ll learn otherwise the first time a tropical cyclone rips through their new renewable showcase.

Not that Europe has to worry too much about tornadoes and ultraviolet corrosion of plastic – the challenge in Europe is getting enough sunlight to produce energy, especially in winter.

What about wind power?

The dirty secret of wind is in some ways it is even worse than solar, when it comes to maintenance difficulties.

Bearings: The Achilles Heel of Wind Turbines

Just in case you think that problem has been solved, here is another article from 2023;

Bearing and gearbox failures: Challenge to wind turbines

By Andrea Aikin
June 15, 2023

The review of current trends in wind-turbine bearings is important, not only for reducing the cost of energy, but also for ensuring the future of sustainable and zero-emission energy sources.

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Bearing failures in wind turbines are a major cause of downtime in energy production for unplanned maintenance, repairs, and replacements. This failure type is a primary cost and results in higher operations and maintenance (O&M) costs for the energy operator and in higher utility bills for the customer. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s (NREL) Gearbox Reliability Database (GRD) shows that 76 percent of gearboxes failed due to bearings, while 17 percent failed due to gear failures. [11] This shows the importance of reliable bearings and gearboxes for wind-turbine operations to the economy and society.

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Sheng noted axial cracks or WECs have attracted research attention, but “there is still no consensus on the root causes and solutions to completely get rid of this failure mode, although case-carburized bearing steel with increased retained austenite and diamond-like carbon coating appear helpful with its mitigation.” While axial cracking occurs on the surface, WECs, typically thought of as precursors to axial cracking, occur in the subsurface.

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Bearings in wind-turbine applications are known to show premature damage, typically as cracks in the bearing steel, with the crack faces often showing evidence of white etching matter. Based on their appearance, these are called WECs, and they are known to cause premature damage to the bearings. [9] WECs also are called white structure flaking (WSF), irregular white etching cracking (Ir-WEC), and brittle flaking. The cracks are thought to form first from the intensity of local shear stress, then the white etching matter is thought to form later from the rubbing of the crack faces against each other. [9,10]

…Read more: 

https://www.windsystemsmag.com/bearing-and-gearbox-failures-challenge-to-wind-turbines/

If I was to hazard a guess why offshore wind has not taken off in a big way, despite billions of dollars of subsidies, that guess would be that nobody has figured out how to economically replace the broken bearings. And if you think maintaining an onshore turbine is difficult, imagine attempting a delicate engineering repair in 30ft seas while suspended from a swaying ship mounted crane hundreds of feet in the air, along with the multi-ton bearing you are trying to install.

And of course, there is the cost of maintaining all the extra power lines these uneconomical abominations seem to require.

Is the false belief that renewables are a one off investment driving renewable enthusiasm? It seems possible – after all, if renewables truly were a one off investment, it would be like magic – put a little aside every year and within half a century or so, your “one off” renewable investments would be making substantial inroads into the cost of energy.

But if the last few decades have proven anything, that is that adding renewables to a grid makes electricity very expensive indeed. There is obviously a silent cost which is driving up prices, aside from the obvious cost of keeping dispatchable generators on standby. My guess is, that silent cost is the expense of maintaining renewable energy systems.

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Correction (EW): h/t Scissor fixed a typo – Aluminum, not Alumina.