“The lesson from Europe is that reliance on wind, solar, and imported natural gas is expensive and risky energy policy. If you experience a low-wind year, a cold winter, an embargo, or a war, you can’t turn up the wind and solar.”

The year 2022 was an energy disaster for Europe. Citizens and businesses suffered from astronomical prices for natural gas and electricity, sky-high home energy bills, shuttered industrial plants, and bankrupt companies. Observers have blamed COVID-19 supply chain disruptions and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but Europe’s green energy policies was the elephant in the room.

For the last two decades, closures of traditional power plants and renewable energy policies made European countries highly dependent upon a combination of intermittent wind and solar sources and natural gas. More than 100 nuclear plants had closed or were scheduled to close, including 30 in Germany and 34 in the United Kingdom.…

“New England home heating and electricity prices are on the rise with no end in sight. Consumers paid record high energy bills last winter, even though the winter was not unusually cold. Shortages of natural gas and green energy policies will drive New England prices higher and raise the chance of electricity blackouts.”

Residential energy bills in New England this year were the highest in history. The combination of electricity and natural gas heating bills exceeded $1,000 per month for an average-sized house in Massachusetts, even though winter temperatures in New England were warmer than average.

Eighty percent of homes in New England, which includes Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont, heat with fuels from oil and gas. The hydrocarbon fuel share of home heating is natural gas (39%), fuel oil and kerosene (33%), and propane or liquid petroleum gas (8%).…

“CCS has been slow to take off due to the cost of capture and the limited salability of carbon dioxide as a product. Thirty-nine CCS facilities capture CO₂ around the world today, totaling 45 million tons per year, or about one-tenth of one percent (0.1%) of industrial emissions produced globally.”

The Environmental Protection Agency is working on a new rule that would set stringent limits on carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions from US power plants. Utilities would be required to retrofit existing plants with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology or to switch to hydrogen fuel. Others call for the use of CCS to decarbonize heavy industry. But the cost of capture and the amount of CO₂ that proponents say needs to be captured crush any ideas about feasibility.…

Ed. note: This post excerpts energy and climate material from the Media Balance Newsletter, a free fortnightly published by physicist John Droz Jr., founder of the Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions. The complete Newsletter for this post can be found here.

Renewables (General):
***The Great Green Energy Transition Is Impossible
*** Why the intermittency problem can’t be solved
***Adequate Storage for Renewable Energy is Not Possible
*** Across the country, a big backlash to new renewables is mounting
*** The U.S. Has Billions for Wind and Solar Projects. Good Luck Plugging Them In.
*** Experts: California’s grid faces collapse as leaders push renewables, EVs
Bangladesh to increase coal power after renewable problems
Dispatchable Intermittent Renewables
Green Energy: Greatest Wealth Transfer to the Rich in History

Wind Energy— Offshore:
*** Thar She Blows
*** CFACT/Heartland Filing Against Dominion’s VA Offshore Project
Why Are Whales Dying Off the East Coast?…