Exposing The Fossil Gasoline FUD About Renewable Power

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On September 17, Canary Media revealed a narrative a few latest public opinion survey performed for the Conservative Power Community by Cygnal in Arkansas, Missouri, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. It discovered that voters in these states favored enlarging the utility grid and including extra renewable power so as to restrict will increase of their utility payments.

Practically three quarters of doubtless voters stated they assist increasing the electrical grid and about two-thirds had been in favor of including extra transmission traces to attach clear power and strengthen grid reliability. As well as, near 90 p.c of respondents stated they had been involved about rising power prices. A majority of surveyed Republicans, Democrats, and Independents stated they had been ​“very involved.”

“This isn’t a partisan difficulty. … You don’t must attraction to at least one facet or one other,” stated Chris Lane, a senior accomplice at Cygnal, who previewed the findings on the Nationwide Conservative Power Summit in Cleveland on August 25. He stated the outcomes stand out for his or her consistency between areas and amongst totally different teams and political events.

Knee-Jerk Response From Fossil Gasoline Crowd

That report set off alarm bells throughout the fossil gas {industry}. They paid large bucks to get somebody elected who would put the kibosh on all this renewable power nonsense. How dare these folks threaten their earnings! It’s downright unAmerican, that’s what it’s. And so the {industry} has introduced up its large weapons to shoot down any suggestion that People really need extra renewables.

We carry you what follows not as a result of we promote the lies being informed however as a result of our readers need to know what the fossil gas {industry} is doing to suppress wind and solar energy. Later, we will provide you with the instruments you might want to counteract these scurrilous distortions ought to anybody try and recommend there may be any fact to them.

One group that felt significantly aggrieved by the CEN survey was the so-called Institute for Power Analysis, which had this to say:

“As a result of wind and photo voltaic crops are far much less environment friendly than fossil gas and nuclear energy crops, acting at considerably decrease capability elements than conventional applied sciences, extra wind and photo voltaic capability is required to generate equal quantities of energy. Because of this, renewables devour orders of magnitude extra supplies for a similar electrical energy output.

“For instance, changing the power output of a 100-megawatt pure gas-fired turbine with wind requires 20 wind generators that occupy round 10 sq. miles of land, requiring huge portions of concrete, metal, and fiberglass, together with uncommon earth parts, whose processing is dominated by China. That implies that wind and photo voltaic additionally require enormous will increase in mining.”

Don’t go away. There’s extra — rather more. IER leaves no stone unturned on the subject of attacking renewables. Subsequent it targets uncooked supplies reminiscent of metal and concrete, ignoring that each are additionally used to construct thermal producing stations. It’s a favourite tactic of the the fossil gas crazies.

They assault using cobalt from the DRC to make batteries however by no means point out that cobalt is a necessary a part of the oil refining course of. Nor do they point out that LFP batteries, which include no cobalt, are quickly changing into the batteries of selection for power storage. The assault continues with this:

“In response to the Mackinac Middle, building supplies — metal, glass, and concrete — wanted for wind generators and photo voltaic panels are produced in power and emissions-intensive industries, reminiscent of cement and metal manufacturing, which every account for 7% of worldwide carbon dioxide emissions. Fossil fuels are used to provide cement, plastics, and fiberglass to energy ships, vans, and building tools, and to offer lubricants for the gearboxes on generators.

“In response to Mark Mills of the Manhattan Institute, ‘If wind generators had been to provide half the world’s electrical energy, practically 2 billion tons of coal [around one quarter of all global coal use] must be consumed to provide the concrete and metal, together with 1.5 billion barrels of oil to make the composite blades.’”

The China Card

Subsequent, it’s time to play the China card:

“Reliance on solar energy additionally means reliance on China, as China dominates the worldwide photo voltaic panel market and polysilicon manufacturing, utilizing low cost coal. Round half of the world’s polysilicon, a key ingredient in photo voltaic cells, is produced in Xinjiang, China, the place Uyghur Muslims are enslaved to provide it.

“Cobalt, wanted for the manufacture of storage batteries to backup wind and photo voltaic and to energy electrical automobiles, is principally produced within the Democratic Republic of Congo, typically utilizing little one labor with abysmal working situations. The Congo has nearly half of the world’s cobalt reserves, and China owns half of the big cobalt mines.

“Wind and photo voltaic items should additionally get replaced a lot sooner than fossil gas or nuclear items, that means extra manufacturing and extra mining. The typical lifetime of wind and photo voltaic items is alleged to be 25 years, however in actuality, it’s a lot much less, and a few are even repowered after simply 10 years of operation. That compares to fossil gas and nuclear items whose working lives are 4, 5, or six a long time. The shorter life means the method of extraction and manufacturing have to be renewed, and outdated panels and generators have to be disposed of.”

However Wait, There’s Extra

Are we executed but? Not fairly. The IER wraps up its full frontal assault on renewables with this conclusion:

“The general public believes that wind and solar energy are low cost and clear. Neither is the case. They require huge quantities of fabric to provide the equal energy of fossil gas or nuclear energy crops, and require enormous quantities of land and mining. Disposal of used wind generators and photo voltaic panels requires particular dealing with because of the dimension of the turbine blades and the toxicity of photo voltaic panels.

“Their reported prices are deceptive as a result of analysts typically deal with the levelized value of electrical energy metric, which excludes the price of backup techniques and infrastructure, solely specializing in the price to construct and function a plant, not the worth of the plant to the grid.”

Data Is Energy

OK, that’s fairly damning, wouldn’t you say? You possibly can see this screed being repeated endlessly by Fake Information. So, what do you say when somebody challenges your assist for renewables primarily based on this data? For the reply, we flip to Greenpeace, which has the lowdown on the IER. It says:

“The Institute for Power Analysis was based by Charles Koch and CEO Robert Bradley, a former Enron government, in Texas beneath its former title, the Institute for Humane Research of Texas. Thomas Pyle, a former Koch and oil-industry lobbyist, is the President of IER and the American Power Alliance, the 501C4 counterpart to IER. Pyle is directing Donald Trump’s Power Division transition workforce, after Trump cited an IER research in a promise to develop federal oil and fuel leasing.

“Politico stories that Koch was amongst donors to $3.6 million promoting marketing campaign, run by AEA within the run as much as the 2012 U.S. presidential election, blaming President Barack Obama for top fuel costs. In response to ProPublica, AEA obtained $2,339,960 from organizations within the Koch community. This included nearly $1.5 million from Freedom Companions, a 50C6 enterprise league directed by lots of the most distinguished members of the Koch brothers’ interior political circle (Richard Fink, Marc Brief, Wayne Gable, and Kevin Gentry) with nameless funding sources from attendees of ‘Koch World’ conferences.”

Greenpeace goes on to say: “IER promotes discredited analysis. IER supported and promoted the ‘Spanish’ and ‘Danish’ research important of fresh power jobs, each of which have been debunked. As of 2015, IER employees had been utilizing the ‘Spanish’ and ‘Danish’ research to foyer state legislators, in assist of efforts to finish state legal guidelines requiring elevated era of fresh power, in any other case generally known as renewable portfolio requirements. One such effort succeeded in freezing Ohio’s clear power legislation.

“IER argued that efforts to curb international warming would accomplish little at too nice a price, promotes ACCF/NAM and Heritage Basis research that exaggerate the prices of local weather coverage, and discourages U.S. management on the worldwide stage.”

Now that you already know extra in regards to the IER, you should use that information to knock down any claims primarily based upon its unhinged ravings. And when you find yourself executed with this text, please take the time to learn the total report from ProPublica entitled “How Darkish Cash Flows Via the Koch Community.” Data is energy. Be happy to make use of it!