In a world swirling with predictions about Earth’s future, each seemingly direr than the last, there is a demand for action to save the planet. However, it’s unclear if those actions will lead to the desired results, be simply impractical, or possibly create their own set of environmental problems. Renewable energy sources—primarily wind and solar—are promising on some level, and perhaps on multiple levels, but as currently designed they also present inherent unintended consequences that may cause more ecological damage than the status quo, without providing a reliable source of electricity.

At Sustainable Energy Innovation, we are preparing to provide a product that may avoid many of the shortfalls that hamper both wind and solar energy. However, only through an understanding of the contemporary circumstances of the wind and solar industries can an educated opinion be garnered.

There may be several paths toward converting naturally occurring events into clean energy. We’ll explore that.

While we do, consider this: Sustainable Energy Innovation is an integral part of any comprehensive approach. What we offer will function under conditions that fail the current wind and solar models.

 

The Destination

California passed Senate Bill 100 this past year. It mandates 100 percent clean energy from Renewables Portfolio Standard (RPS)-eligible and zero-carbon resources for the state’s retail electrical needs by December 31, 2045. The bill also bumps up the 50 percent target to 60 percent by 2030.

The good news: California has tripled its use of renewable energy in the past decade. The bad: it will become progressively more difficult to reach the goal. It has been a comparatively simple mission to increase usage from practically nothing to a significantly greater percentage of renewables. However, as this recent graph indicates, natural gas, a fossil fuel, remains the source for nearly half of the generation of electricity for the state. While cleaner than coal, it is the goal of the state to eliminate it in favor of renewable sources.

The problem is the growing difficulty of squeezing the last kilowatts of the required energy from renewable sources because of the limitations and reliability in its production. While geothermal, hydro and biomass provide some energy, for all intents and purposes there are only two bullets in the gun– solar and wind– and neither are magic.

Most states have some degree of Renewable Portfolio Standards. Twenty-nine states, Washington, D.C., and three territories have adopted an RPS, while eight states and one territory have set renewable energy goals. Hawaii has a goal of reaching 100 percent renewable energy by 2045. Colorado’s recently elected Governor, Jared Polis, pledged to transition the state to 100 percent renewable energy by 2040. New Mexico’s newly-elected governor Michelle Lujan Grisham signed the “Energy Transition Act” in March, which requires New Mexico to move to 100 percent carbon-free energy.

 

Where We Are Now

The following graph displays the approximate percentages of the sources for electricity generation in the United States

Power plants, whether the source is coal, natural gas or oil, work in similar fashion. These energy-dense substances are burned to release heat, which boils water into steam, which spins a turbine that generates electricity. By their very nature, each of these substances has a concentrated, intrinsic energy.

Unfortunately, almost 65 percent of that energy, or approximately 22 quadrillion BTUs (British Thermal Unit is the standard measurement of heat), goes up in smoke each year. Or more accurately, that loss is heat created from burning the source fuel, but that also fails to increase production of electricity. To illustrate why that amount is meaningful, consider that it’s more than the energy in all the gasoline annually used in the country. Merely one-third of the potential energy of coal, oil or natural gas is converted into electricity.

Although the major loss comes from converting the substance’s energy into electricity, additional losses occur getting that electricity to the end user. Energy lost in transmission and distribution is another 69 trillion BTUs—that’s about the same as the energy America annually uses to dry our clothes. About 6 percent of all electricity generated is lost getting it from Point A to Point B.

As far as losing energy in its transmission and distribution the United States is actually on the more efficient end of the scale. Some countries, like India, have losses approaching 30 percent.

Solar, wind or Thor’s lightning cannot stem the losses through transmission and distribution. These losses are totally independent of the process of generation and occur with equal gusto regardless the source.

The following graph displays the loss of electricity through transmission by state.

A few words about the country’s electrical grid that keeps the lights on: it’s fragile, antiquated, interdependent on every component working properly, and will be expanding with every wind and solar farm. The average age of power transformers is 40 years. Keep in mind the cascading blackout in 2003 that affected over 50 million people in the United States and Canada because a tree branch fell on a power line in Ohio.

 

Why The Road Is Long

Solar power needs sunshine and wind needs…well…wind. Unfortunately, like any other natural occurrence they are unreliable.

1) This example from Texas underscores one of the major problems with wind power. Primarily located in the western part of the state, Texas has a large, 18,000-megawatt, wind generation system. Deviations in wind power of 30 percent or 5,000 megawatts within a few hours occur with some regularity. Those erratic variations in power place unwarranted stress on the grid. The power grid and its equipment were not designed for fluctuations of large quantities of power.

As recorded in a year-long, hour by hour log of wind output for the Texas grid, wind generation fell to a minuscule 0.8% of installed capacity on August 31, 2016 at noon.

2) A blackout to 850,000 customers in South Australia in 2016 was substantially owing to the reliance on renewable energy. Nine of thirteen wind farms reduced their output after voltage dips allowing the grid to fail.

3) A recent study of global wind energy resources by Chinese researchers determined they have precipitously decreased. Data from more than 1,000 weather stations around the world led the team of researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences to conclude that 67 percent of the stations had witnessed an extensive loss in wind power potential over a forty-year span.

“The results show that surface wind speeds were decreasing in the past four decades over most regions in the Northern Hemisphere,” the study’s authors wrote,

North America has witnessed at least a 30 percent drop in available hub-height (the height of the rotor of an installed wind turbine) wind speeds in approximately 30 percent of the stations. European locations fared more poorly with about 40 percent experiencing a similar decline. The effects were worse for Asia, where around 80 percent of sites saw a 30 percent decrease.

4) Solar panels and wind turbines require rare earth metals–particularly neodymium, terbium, indium, dysprosium, and praseodymium—and production of these elements must grow twelvefold by 2050 according to a study supported by the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure. It warns that the renewable energy industry faces the looming obstacle of shortages in the supply.

Among other issues with the supply of rare earth elements (REE) is that China, with all the geopolitical considerations, controls over 90 percent of the world market. To that point, China has threatened to curtail exporting rare earths to the United States due to the current trade dispute.

Also, the extraction of these minerals is highly polluting. And, as the name implies, they are rare. The Dutch study concluded that the “current global supply of several critical metals is insufficient to transition to a renewable energy system.”

5) Solar has its own issues. Between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. on September 1, 2017, California incurred an all-time peak load of more than 50,000 megawatts, while two-thirds of solar generation had vanished by the latter hour. An hour later, 90 percent of solar generation was gone, but demand had only decreased from 50,000 to 48,000 megawatts. Solar generation was completely off the grid by 8 p.m., but the demand remained more than 46,000 megawatts. The lesson is that solar energy may not be available when most needed.

6) California also suffers from too much of a good thing. The number of solar farms already provides a surplus of power to the grid at peak times. This is referred to as the Duck Curve; where renewable energy generation exceeds demand in the middle of the day, but then creates the need to increase generation elsewhere after the sun sets. At times, as much as an additional 13,000 megawatts are needed in the evening hours, since solar projects are useless at night.

7) In another disconcerting development and following a number of incarnations of the project, the US Bureau of Land Management (BLM) approved the Palen Solar Project near Desert Center overriding the California Energy Commission’s denial. The objections had included the projects’ location in a fragile desert ecosystem, where a number of endangered plant and animal species reside. The flora and fauna are reliant on the essential groundwater that would be pumping through at least ten wells needed to support the project.

8) A planned 500-Megawatt solar project on a 6,350-acre site in western Spotsylvania County, Virginia, with 3,500 acres being used to house 1.8 million solar panels, has been cleared of timber in anticipation of the project. This is clearly more than little ironic–clear trees that are nature’s way of vacuuming atmospheric CO2 to build something that’s supposed to reduce CO2. (Are we missing something?)

Pollution from REEs, destruction of pristine ecosystems, clear cut forests—it all seems too much like picking your poison.

9) A study produced by Stanford University in 2014 outlined a plan that could enable California to attain the 100 percent renewable energy requirement by 2050 by addressing the state’s transportation, electric power, industry, and heating and cooling energy needs.

One of the recommended scenarios suggests that all of California’s 2045 power demands could be met from an assortment of sources, including:
• 25,000 onshore 5-megawatt wind turbines
• 1,200 100-megawatt concentrated solar plants
• 15 million 5-kilowatt residential rooftop photovoltaic systems
• 72 100-megawatt geothermal plants
• 5,000 0.75-megawatt wave devices
• 3,400 1-megawatt tidal turbines

The study also indicated that a major overhaul of the current infrastructure would be required to create a reliable electricity delivery system. Costs unknown.

While the practicalities of the proposals offered by the Stanford study are debatable, its primary theme is irrefutable. There is no single solution to providing the required electricity requirements for California let alone the rest of the country. Only a multifaceted approach to replace fossil fuels offers a remotely feasible result.

After analyzing California’s Senate Bill 100, Robert Bryce of the Manhattan Institute wrote in the Los Angeles Times, “California would need 41.5 billion square meters, or about 16,023 square miles, of turbines to reach the kind of goals included in the bill. To put that into perspective, the land area of Los Angeles County is slightly more than 4,000 square miles—California would have to cover a land area roughly four times the size of L.A.”

10) The city of Georgetown, Texas began its transition to 100 percent renewable energy in 2016. Three years later, the tab for the change has been $30 million, which has displeased many of the city’s 70,000 residents. The result: Georgetown is scrambling to get out of its long-term, fixed-price energy contracts. The city exceeded its electricity budget for 2018 by $10.5 million, leaving city officials to raise electricity rates—the average bill rose by $13 per month.

All of this is an acknowledgement that the task of replacing fossil fuels as the primary energy source of stable and reliable electricity to 300-plus million American citizens is not impossible, but certainly formidable.
Will the technology improve? It always does. However, in their current forms, solar and wind are beset with a number of complications.

Remember, if the solution was easy it’d already be here.

 

The Problems With Wind Power

1) The manufacturing of one wind turbine requires 900 tons of steel, 2500 tons of concrete, and 45 tons of nonrecyclable plastic. Life expectancy of a wind turbine is 20-25 years. As an example, the Ponnequin Wind Farm on the border of Colorado and Wyoming retired their turbines at the average age of 18 years. They were dynamited and the refuse taken to a landfill.

There are no binding federal regulations to dictate cleaning up wind farm locations after they are retired. Thousands of turbines have been abandoned in the United States.

Plus, it’s estimated, that to supply half the world’s electricity requirements from wind it would demand the consumption of two billion tons of coal to produce the steel and concrete needed to construct the turbines, and two billion barrels of oil to manufacture the composite blades. And we get to do it over again in twenty years.

2) The prominent US wildlife ecologist and ornithologist Albert Manville claims that as many as 440,000 birds are killed by existing wind turbines in the US every year. Another study, using 58 mortality estimates that met their criteria, came up with an estimate of between 140,000 and 328,000 birds dying each year from collisions with wind turbines.

It’s been estimated that over 1,000 birds of prey are killed each year by the nearly 7,000 wind turbines at Altamont Pass in California. There are 5,000 wind turbines at Tehachapi Pass, which is adjacent to critical habitat for the extremely endangered California condor. (You do the math.)

3) Wind turbines kill a staggering 600,000 to 900,000 bats every year, according to a new study. Mark Hayes, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Colorado at Denver, analyzed published findings and places the number at more than 600,000.

4) In addition, it appears that there is a bigger risk of fatal collisions with taller turbines. This emerges as greater problem, as larger wind turbines are considered more efficient energy producers and the next generation of machinery. Consequently, it is expected that new wind farms will contain even bigger turbines, which will result in even more bird and bat deaths. The American Bird Conservancy estimates as many as 1.4 million birds will die annually from turbines by 2030 as America transitions to wind energy.

Stanford’s study (above) estimated California needed 25,000 wind turbines to reach its goal. An additional 234,000 would be required to generate the electrical needs for just half the nation.

5) It is also estimated that between 8 and 57 million birds die annually from collisions with transmission lines. (Acknowledged, the estimate has quite a margin.) Power lines would increase dramatically with every new wind or solar farm installation. A mere 25 percent increase in the number of power lines could equate to another 2 million to 14.25 million annual bird fatalities.

6) Two recent studies indicate that large wind farms may actually lead to local warming. One study examined a region of west-central Texas where four of the world’s largest wind farms are comprised of more than 2,350 turbines. The researchers concluded that the temperature in the region had increased by 0.72 degrees and attributed it to wind turbines modifying exchanges from the ground and atmosphere. They analyzed data between 2003 and 2011.

7) People who reside near wind turbines report a number of ailments that they claim are caused by the sights and sounds of the spinning blades. These include anxiety, panic, dizziness, headaches, sleep disturbance, blood pressure elevation, nausea, vertigo, stress, ear pressure or pain, memory and concentration difficulties, and irritability.

8) Residents had so many issues with two wind turbines in the city of Falmouth, Massachusetts that the city decided to remove them, at a cost of between $500,000 and $1 million each. The town is still on the hook for bond payments of $3.6 million for the first turbine.

9) Due to the poor performance of wind generated electricity, Poland plans to remove all its wind farms by 2035. China is not approving any further wind projects due to their inefficiency and high costs.

 

Recently Rejected Wind Farm Projects

1) Crescent Peak Wind Energy Project which would have covered more than 32,500 acres of public land adjacent to two wilderness areas in Nevada and the Mojave National Preserve and Castle Mountains National Monument in California. The BLM rejected the plan.

2) American Electric Power Co.’s $4.5 billion Wind Catcher project destined to be located in Oklahoma and servicing Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas was rejected by Texas regulators. It was to be the largest wind farm in the country.

3) New Jersey’s Board of Public Utilities has refused to approve the Nautilus Offshore Wind LLC project by EDF Renewable Energy. It was to be located 2.8 miles off Atlantic City’s coast.

4) Long Island PA declined a proposal to construct an offshore wind farm beside one it has already contracted Deepwater Wind for off the Rhode Island coast.

5) Ocean City, Maryland rejected the second largest offshore wind farm. Even though the developers offered to provide Ocean City with free electricity for the life of the wind farm, Ocean City officials say they don’t want offshore wind turbines to be built within 30 miles of the resort town’s beaches under any circumstances.

6) The New Mexico Public Regulation Commission approved the Corona Wind Project, which could be the largest wind farm in the Western Hemisphere. However, it rejected the 520-mile transmission line that would carry the electricity to California, leaving the project in limbo. (All dressed up, but nowhere to go.)

7) The West Virginia Public Service Commission has rejected a bid by Appalachian Power Company to buy two wind farms in the state and Ohio. The commission, which regulates utilities in the state, says Appalachian doesn’t need the farms. It also was concerned about state taxpayers bearing the brunt of the farms’ costs.

 

The Problems With Solar Power

1) Storage of the electricity and/or storage of the heat to generate electricity after sunset. This remains the largest obstacle to a reliable energy source.

2) The Ivanpah Solar Plant in the Mojave Desert kills an estimated 6,000 birds a year. Along I-15 west of Las Vegas, Ivanpah concentrates beam of sunlight to heat three 40-story towers to power the plant’s electricity generating turbines. When birds fly into the beams they are incinerated, with only wisps of white smoke remaining. Workers at Ivanpah call them “Streamers.”

Some observers have pegged the annual death toll as high as 28,000. Many of those birds have died trying to fly through the intense radiation directed toward the project’s towers, known as “solar flux.”

3) There are an estimated 1,000 Yuma clapper rails remaining on the planet. One appeared in a survey by the National Fish and Wildlife Forensics Laboratory of 233 birds recovered from the sites of three Californian desert solar power plants as part of a federal investigation. The laboratory concluded that many of the birds had been fatally singed, broken, or otherwise fatally crippled by the facilities.

The rail had been killed at First Solar’s 4,400-acre Desert Sun Solar Farm in California’s Riverside County. The facility uses a 550-megawatt photovoltaic array that produces electricity for California.

The Stanford study proposes 1,200 solar power plants—for California alone.

4) A recent study conducted by the University of Chicago found that the cost of electricity rose 11 percent after seven years in states that mandated subsidizing solar power, and 17 percent after twelve years. Yet, renewable energy was only 1.8 percent higher after seven years and 4.2 percent higher after twelve.

5) Amazon pledged to use renewable energy for its facilities planned for Virginia. It requires 7,000 megawatts of solar power to meet its commitment. To produce 20 megawatts of solar power it needs between 160 and 200 acres of solar panels, according to Dominion Energy. This means just to supply Amazon it would require 56,000 acres of solar panels, or 87.5 square miles.

Not to rain on anybody’s parade, but that simply is not going to happen.

 

Recently Rejected Solar Farm Projects

1) Not a specific solar farm, but Arizona Proposition 127 was soundly defeated in the November 2018 election. Over $54 million was spent on the initiative (pro and con) which would have required Arizona to amend its constitution to require electric utilities to use renewable energy for 50 percent of their power generation by 2035.

2) A Superior Court judge reversed a zoning board’s approval of a 2.9 MW solar farm in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, saying the project qualifies as a manufacturing facility, which is prohibited in residential zones.

3) Citing precedence and proximity to homes, the City Council denied a solar farm proposed for Chesapeake, Virginia.

4) The Zoning Board of Appeals rejected a proposal to build the largest solar farm in New Hampshire. It was to be a 54-acre facility located near Concord.

5) The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio recommended against American Electric Power’s bid to develop a solar farm in Highland County.

 

Where Does That Leave Us?

It leaves us with inefficient, expensive, highly subsidized industries that produce costly power. To some, that may be enough because it isn’t “the other.”

At Sustainable Energy Innovation we ask, “Can’t we do better than that?”

If wind and solar energy as currently constituted are not the answer, what is?

That is a very good question.

 

What if…

What if there was some way to help…that makes sense…that could be done today…that could be used by everyone…that was dependable?

What if there was a device that could provide up to 14 percent of a household’s electrical needs? What if this device was independent of the electrical grid and would never contribute to the loss of electricity via transmission?

Imagine a device that would never harm a bird, bat or bee. Imagine a device that is not a blight on the natural landscape.

Think of the cumulative effect of having such a device on a thousand homes…a million homes…ten million…

Here at Sustainable Energy Innovation we believe we can provide that very device.

There’s an old scenario, supposedly funny, where a lost person stops to ask for directions. After hemming and hawing and several false starts, a local resident responds, “You can’t get there from here.”

We believe we can get there from here.

“An intelligent fool can make things
bigger and more complex… It takes a
touch of genius—and a lot of courage
to move in the opposite direction.”

E.F. Schumacher

 

The Answer Is Coming Soon.