“The reality is that non-dispatchable generation technologies, (wind and solar) cannot be directly compared with dispatchable generation technologies (coal, natural gas, nuclear, biomass, and generally speaking, hydro). This is a common mistake.”

Unfortunately, unrealistic representations of wind and solar are alive and well in many publications. Even if mathematically correct, their ability to reflect reality should always be carefully assessed.

These are like maps that show only a few major features, such as coastlines, mountains, large rivers, and major roads, leaving out the likes of non-fordable smaller rivers, marshes, ravines, and steep slopes or cliffs.

Signs to watch out for:

• Wind and solar are included in graphs comparing capacities or capital investments.
• Representing that capacities, electricity production, and costs per watt-hour of electricity produced can be used to directly compare non-dispatchable wind and solar with reliable, controllable generation plants.

“America has a short list of truly shameful ‘days,’—among them the Dred Scott decision, the Trail of Tears, Japanese internment, and Abu Ghraib—most of them symbolic of a larger national moral failure. I hope I am wrong, but I fear that today will join that list.”

“If all that [climate-policy-related] deregulation comes to pass, then I predict future generations will look back on today with particular scorn and shame.”

“A single executive order might therefore seem unremarkable. But today’s action is significant….  At stake are the global economy, entire ecosystems, and the lives of millions—most of them not yet living. Those future generations will judge the authors of today’s policy harshly.”

– Nathan Richardson, “Trump’s Climate Executive Order Discards American Values.” Resources for the Future, March 28, 2017.

“I realized that the premature consensus on human-caused climate change was harming scientific progress because of the questions that don’t get asked and the investigations that aren’t made. We therefore lack the kinds of information to more broadly understand climate variability and societal vulnerabilities.”

“Scientists who demonize their opponents are behaving in a way that is antithetical to the scientific process. These are the tactics of enforcing a premature theory for political purposes.”

“Let’s make scientific debate about climate change great again.”

“Groupthink” … “sausage making” … “bullying” … “substantial uncertainties” … “premature consensus” … These terms were used by the scholarly Judith Curry in her important, the-future-will-note Congressional testimony last week against the neo-Malthusian, nature-is-optimal natural-science community.

And what has she endured by leaving the “consensus”? Among other things, she has been labeled “serial climate disinformer” … “anti-science” … “denier.”…

“[I]t is the policy of the United States that executive departments and agencies (agencies) immediately review existing regulations that potentially burden the development or use of domestically produced energy resources and appropriately suspend, revise, or rescind those that unduly burden the development of domestic energy resources beyond the degree necessary to protect the public interest or otherwise comply with the law.”

“It is also the policy of the United States that necessary and appropriate environmental regulations comply with the law, are of greater benefit than cost, when permissible, achieve environmental improvements for the American people, and are developed through transparent processes that employ the best available peer-reviewed science and economics.”

Executive Order: PROMOTING Energy Independence AND Economic Growth

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows:

Section 1. …