Nick Grealy
Administrator of NoHotAir and ShaleGasInfo Blog Sites

Nick Grealy, our friend from the UK, talks about solar energy and Germany’s forever flaunted renewables program which requires natural gas as a complement to achieve any success whatsover.

A classic definition of insanity is repeating the same actions and expecting different outcomes.  My definition of absolutely barking is repeating the same actions and getting worse outcomes.

Midsummer Day is as good as it’s going to get for solar capacity, so let’s see what light we can shed on the subject.  It’s worth looking at this video from a NY Times debate between Robert Stone and Robert Kennedy Jr on “Pandora’s Promise” where RFK Jr, who already has channeled Josh Fox by saying the wind blows when the sun doesn’t shine, then goes on to approvingly quote one of the urban myths of solar power, Germany gets half its power from solar.

Bill McKibben, confederate of Fox and Kennedy told a site called Rumpus last year:

The really cool thing—here is a book to go look at. It just came out as a ninety-nine cent Kindle Single. It’s by a guy named Osha Davidson, it’s called “Clean Break,” and it’s about what’s going on in Germany, which is un-f…ing-believable. Munich’s north of Montreal, and there were days this month when they got half their energy from solar panels. It has nothing to do with technology or location—it’s all political will, and they have it.

It unbelievable. These are the real time statistics of the Energy Mix in Germany on June 21, Midsummer’s Day, the time the sun is strongest, longest and highest in the Northern Hemisphere. It’s a bit hard to make out, so it breaks down as 17,861 Megawatts out of a total supply of 68,968 MW or 25.8%. Impressive, but not half. Wind was 13,473 or 19.5%, so total renewable output was 45% at the time.

But while that sounds especially impressive compared to the UK, which was less than 3% wind at noon today, it needs some context. Starting with, this was 1300 on Midsummer Day. This might be a revelation to some, but electricity can’t be stored. Another obvious fact is that noon on midsummer day isn’t exactly peak capacity time. If I could see 1700 on December 21, it may illustrate how much back up renewables need. Unfortunately, we can’t but we can see 0700 today when solar supplied 5% and wind 13.6%.

Now, I’m happy to be impressed by that. It’s miles further than the UK ever achieved from wind, and it shows what I always say, that renewables and gas belong together. This isn’t the place to talk about cost, by the way. The issue here I concede to the greens is CO2 production. Surely this is a victory for lower CO2, which, as greens constantly remind us, is what it’s all about.

Here, the news is not bad. It’s awful. Because Germany is using the dirtiest and most CO2 intensive energy source to generate the 54% of conventional production at 1300 or the 81% needed at 0700. We can’t see the exact breakdown until tomorrow but it won’t be a pretty picture judging on the June 20 report.

As bad as it is that coal supplied 24% of electricity at 0700, far worse is that there is something even dirtier than steam coal, namely lignite or brown coal which supplied 34%.

The rest comes from 20% nuclear, the same one that Frau Merkel wanted to shut down after Fukushima. Shockingly, the lowest carbon intense product, natural gas is used to produce only 1226 MW or 2.5% (ironically about the same level that wind produced in the UK at the same time).

German Solar Park

All this goes some way to explaining why Germany’s CO2 rose by over 2% last year. This year has got to be worse, with only 15% of Germany’s power produced from gas at 1700 on January 15 for example.

Why is that? Coal is cheap, and gas is flexible are two most explanations. Gas actually suffers from being flexible. Sorry to drag in technical stuff again, but demand fluctuates. As people flick the switch and anticipate the lights come on, that electricity, which can’t be stored, has to come from turbines that need to switch on relatively instantly. This is called spinning reserve, which generates low level electricity without actually putting it into the grid, but can do so instantly when needed. Spinning reserve is overwhelmingly from gas. You can’t turn a nuclear reactor, or a coal fired steam boiler, up or down at will the way you can with gas turbines which are essentially jet engine technology. Think of them as standing at the end of the runway going from zero to 200mph in a minute.

But gas is also expensive next to coal so we have the fact that the lowest carbon fuel is also the last to be called upon to generate. Oil is the very last but much too expensive to burn generating electricity unless there is no other choice. Oil is still big on islands, Cyprus, Malta, Hawaii for example, but if you see it being burnt in places like the UK, it’s because all other sources have been exhausted.

In Germany, it’s complicated in that German gas is influenced by long term prices linked to oil, from Russia, Norway and the Netherlands in order of imports. The simple solution is to increase the supply of gas. Throw in issues with the failed EU carbon pricing scheme and we have the following conclusions

• The maximum headroom of wind and solar, even after throwing all the money on earth at it, is not going to be much more than 20% of all power consumed over a year. The sun and the wind do not, and will not ever, complement each other. To pretend so is to be far more anti-science than alleged climate change deniers ever are.
• Renewables and gas could indeed be the making of each other. Deny gas and the only alternatives are coal, nuclear or darkness. Deny gas and emissions- which are the issue, not which fuel source-  will only go one way – up.
• But if push came to shove, gas will win out, simply on the laws of physics. Gas is there at noon or midnight, January and July. Germany’s 17.8 MW power plant known as the sun, goes below the horizon just as people start needing light and heat. Wind is sometimes there sometimes not. Gas may be  dirty carbon fuel – except when it’s not, when all of a sudden you realise the only alternative is even dirtier fuel. The choice is up to us. Greens just need to remember who their friends are, because if push came to shove, gas can work as baseload too. The renewable industry understands that completely. Unfortunately, that ‘s a point lost on those who have a religous attachment to renewables.

The priests of the green church know all this. What they need to do,  as with nuclear, is to work on the congregation.