INTERMITTENCY AND NEW ENERGY

Twice now NewEnergyNews has come upon “energy experts” declaiming that one or another of the New Energies is not really “green” (whatever that means). In both cases, the declaimers have been nuclear energy advocates. Draw your own conclusions.

Wind Power is Simply Not Green, According to Energy Expert H. Douglas Lightfoot; Wind and solar electricity cannot supply more than 10% of electricity on the world's electricity grids, based on the latest research by energy expert H. Douglas Lightfoot.
September 10, 2007 (PR Newswire)

WHO
H. Douglas Lightfoot of Nobody’s Fuel

WHAT
Lightfoot contends renewable energy sources cannot be used for more than 10% of electricity supply because the grid cannot accommodate more than that. He makes several other points about renewable energy, making them sound like criticisms though they are actually truisms, well known and in no way detrimental to the use of renewable sources.

The US (and Canadian) grid systems are interconnected. They send energy between the regions. This means that if it is not windy or sunny enough where you live today, you can get wind- or solar- generated electricity from somewhere else. Tomorrow, you might send it back in the other direction. The better the grid system and the operating technology, the more efficiently this can be done. Entirely worth the investment.(click to enlarge)

WHEN
Lightfoot’s website and DVD are currently available.

WHERE
In the guise of sincere concern for emission-free energy and climate change, Lightfoot presents truisms misleadingly. They can be found at his website and in his obviously pro-Nuclear Energy DVD.

WHY
- There is no doubt the US electricity grid has the technological capability to accommodate a large percent of electricity generation from renewable sources. Presently, portions of the US electricity grid are woefully inadequate, as those who lived through the big east coast blackout a couple of years ago can attest. The grid is in need of modernizing. In many places, like Texas, that is already taking place.

Every grid system everywhere ramps up and down every day in predictable and unpredicted patterns. Using the same control mechanisms, renewable and intermittent sources can easily be (and already are being) intergrated into the electricity supply.

- One of the most important ways utility suppliers are modernizing the grid is by making it “smart” so it can accommodate intermittent energy sources.

- A California Energy Commission study conclusively reported the California grid could and should be updated to accommodate 33% of its electricity from renewable energy. A focused effort could accomplish this by 2010 and a serious effort could accomplish this by 2020.

- A Minnesota Public Utilities Commission study reached similar conclusions.

- Lightfoot makes a big deal about the energy lost when the grid slows down to accommodate changing supplies. In fact, the electricity grid does this all day every day as usage rises and falls. Accommodating intermittent renewable sources would be no different.

- Lightfoot makes a big deal about the fossil fuel back-up requirements necessary with renewable sources. All electricity supply is backed up, either by another form of energy or another production source. Renewables simply require the same. As for supposed inefficiencies of solar and wind, (a) they are getting more efficient all the time, and (b) so producers build redundantly – is it a problem if they use too much sun or wind?

- Lightfoot’s method of argument is to set up some misleading point and then declaim its inaccuracy. Example: He declares that all biomass sources are inadequate because of the by now almost universally acknowledged inefficiencies of corn ethanol.

- Lightfoot’s arguments about net metering, a control system used for integrating home solar energy systems into the larger electrical grid and keeping track of the power flow, prove nothing about the grid’s ability to accommodate intermittent renewable sources except that it is being done all day every day despite Lightfoot’s doubts.

By the end of 2007, wind energy development will near 15,000 megawatts in the US, nowhere near its full potential. Discussions at Congressman Markey's September 20 subcommittee hearing were about how soon it would get to 100,000 megawatts. And always remember: The turbines we build today are a legacy to the generations that follow. Each turbine frees our heirs from importing some cubic feet of explosive gas, burning some tons of dirty coal or dealing with the disposal of nuclear waste. (click to enlarge)

QUOTES
- Lightfoot: “Energy supply is more important than climate change.”
- NewEnergyNews: Energy supply is one thing. Climate change is another. If you want to do right by the climate, by the economy’s need for abundant affordable energy, and by the next generations (for whom today’s infrastructure investments are made), investing in renewable energies and a modern power grid will serve your purposes. If you want to confuse people and bully them into succumbing to the arguments of the nuclear energy industry, statements like Lightfoot’s might do it.