Sunshine and windpower are renewable, but they’re also intermittent and their technology is nowhere near to making them a replacement for fossil fuels. From James Rickards at dailyreckoning.com:
What have the climate alarmists been screaming about for the past 40 years or so? Their agenda is well-known. They want to close nuclear plants; shut down coal electric generators; eliminate natural gas and oil-fired electrical plants; and substitute wind, solar and hydropower in their place.
According to the fanatics, this substitution of renewable energy sources for so-called “fossil fuels” and uranium-powered plants would reduce CO2 emissions and save the planet from the existential threat of global warming.
Everything about this climate alarmist agenda is a fraud.
The evidence that the planet is warming is slight and the effect is likely temporary with global cooling in the forecast. The contribution of CO2 emissions to any global warming is not clear and is at best unsettled science and at worst another fraud.
Most importantly, global energy demand is growing much faster than renewables can come online, meaning that oil, natural gas, clean coal and nuclear energy will be needed whether renewables grow or not.
Wind and Solar Won’t Cut It
Wind turbines and solar panels cannot be the backbone of a modern energy grid because they are intermittent sources. Wind turbines require continual wind and solar panels require continual sunlight. Turbines don’t produce when the wind stops. Solar panels don’t produce at night or on cloudy days.
I have firsthand experience with this because I once built the largest off-grid noncommercial solar panel array in New England. You learn quickly to do laundry, run the dishwasher and use other high-energy electrical appliances on sunny days because you’ll need to conserve your batteries through the snow and rain.
