Green energy and the push to electrify all the pieces have been in the news recently but for all the unsuitable reasons.
As an alternative of the green energy nirvana politicians and green energy advocates have promised, economic and physical reality has begun to set in.
Start with the economic realities.
Wind turbine manufacturers like Siemens and General Electric have reported huge losses for the first half of this 12 months, almost $5 billion for the former and $1 billion for the latter.
Amongst other problems, turbine quality control has suffered, forcing manufacturers resembling Siemens and Vestas to incur costly warranty repairs.
In Europe, offshore wind output has been lower than promised, while operating costs have been much higher than advertised.
Offshore wind developers in Europe and the US are canceling projects because of higher materials and construction costs.
In Massachusetts, Avangrid, the developer of the 1,200 MW Commonwealth Wind project paid $48 million to get out of its existing contract to sell power to ratepayers.
That way, the company can rebid the project next 12 months at a fair higher price.
Close by, the developers of the 1,200 MW SouthCoast Wind Project off Martha’s Vineyard can pay about $60 million to exit their existing contract.
Rhode Island Energy, the state’s essential electric utility, recently rejected the second Revolution Wind Project because the contract price was too high.
![Washington State Gov. Jay Inslee promised that his state's new](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/09/NYPICHPDPICT000022454185.jpg?w=1024)
And Ørsted, the Danish government-owned company that’s developing the Southfork Wind and Sunrise Wind projects off Long Island — in addition to the Ocean Wind project off the Recent Jersey coast — last week announced that, without additional subsidies and better contract prices, it can have to write-off billions of dollars in potential losses.
The result: Although Siemens Energy CEO Christian Bruch insists that “energy transition without wind energy doesn’t work,” 2022 saw 16% less recent wind-power capability than in 2021, according to the American Clean Power Association.
In Recent Jersey, the legislature passed a law in July, which is probably going unconstitutional, to bail out Ørsted.
The laws will award the company with several billion dollars of investment tax credits that were supposed to go to consumers.
![But now Washington State has the highest gas prices in the entire country.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/09/NYPICHPDPICT000025146301.jpg?w=1024)
Back on dry land, opposition to siting land-gobbling wind and solar projects continues to grow.
Local governments in Iowa, Illinois, and Ohio have all rejected or restricted projects.
Rural communities, it seems, don’t need to host massive turbine farms — nor the high-voltage transmission lines needed to deliver electricity to power-hungry cities.
Then there are electric vehicles.
![German manufacturer Siemens's wind-turbine business Siemens Gamesa has lost almost $5 billion over the past year.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/09/NYPICHPDPICT000013093398.jpg?w=1024)
Ford, which has bet heavily on its electric Lightning pickup and Mustang and received a $9.2 billion government-subsidized loan in January, revealed that it has lost $60,000 for each EV it sold in the first half of this 12 months.
Rivian, one other EV company, managed to reduce its losses per EV to around $33,000, an enormous improvement over the $67,000 loss per EV in the first quarter of the 12 months.
Proterra, a Bay Area-based manufacturer of electric buses and batteries that had a $10 million loan forgiven by the Biden Administration, just filed for bankruptcy.
Like the wizard in The Wizard of Oz, alternative energy proponents claim these are only temporary little potholes on the road to economic and climate nirvana — all of which could be full of extra money through renegotiated power purchase contracts and more zero-emissions mandates.
![An employee working on the factor floor at Rivian, the e-car start-up.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/09/NYPICHPDPICT000016944555.jpg?w=1024)
Alternative energy madness – and that’s what it’s – has had its biggest impact in California.
But Recent York and Recent Jersey have adopted most of that state’s mandates.
Sales of recent internal combustion vehicles will likely be banned starting in 2035 in the states. All of the electricity sold to retail consumers could have to be “zero-emissions.”
Homeowners and constructing owners will likely be forced to replace gas- and oil-burning space and water heaters with electric heat pumps.
And, gas stoves will likely be regulated out of existence.
Recent York also will soon implement one other California import: a carbon “cap-and-invest” program, which is able to impose a tax on fossil fuels sold by wholesalers and utilities.
The billions of dollars collected every year will provide a green slush fund, allowing the governor and legislators to hand out money to their politically favored cronies, as has so often been the case in the past.
Washington State began its “cap-and-invest” program in January of this 12 months.
Modeled after California’s, Governor Jay Inslee promised the program would have “minimal impact, if any. We’re talking about pennies.”
As an alternative, the program has raised gasoline prices – almost 50 cents per gallon thus far this 12 months. Washington State now claims the honor of having the highest gasoline prices in the nation: In Seattle, for instance, the average price of regular gasoline is over $5 per gallon.
![Electric vehicle-maker Rivian has halved its per-EV losses to around $33,000 each — less than half of what they were at the beginning of this year.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/09/NYPICHPDPICT000020247211.jpg?w=1024)
After all, the entire point of the program was to raise gasoline and fossil fuel prices to encourage consumers to switch to electric vehicles, mass transit, electric heat pumps, and so forth.
But politics being what it’s, Governor Inslee, together with environmentalists and legislative proponents, now blames greedy oil firms for the price increases.
‘We won’t stand for’ corporate greed,” the Governor said at a July 20, 2023, press conference.
Once Recent York’s cap-and-invest program starts, probably next 12 months, you possibly can expect an identical final result: higher gasoline and diesel prices, higher prices for natural gas and fuel oil used to heat homes and apartment buildings, and limitless political demagoguery denouncing all of it.
![France has been able to wean itself away from fossil fuels by investing in nuclear power — which the nation has proven can be produced safely.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/09/NYPICHPDPICT000014621035.jpg?w=1024)
As the push toward electric-everything powered by green energy barrels along, proponents also refuse to confront basic physical realities.
Electricity accounts for just one-sixth of all energy use.
The remainder is fossil fuels consumed for transportation, space and water heating, and manufacturing.
Convert all the pieces to electricity and electricity consumption will increase. Quite a bit.
According to the Recent York Climate Motion Committee’s Final Scoping Plan, Recent York will meet that increased demand by constructing almost 15,000 MW of offshore wind, like the Southfork Wind and Sunrise Wind projects, and over 40,000 MW of solar panels. (By comparison, the emissions-free Indian Point Nuclear Plant, which former Governor Cuomo forced to close, had a capability of just over 1,000 MW.)
![Siemens CEO Christian Bruch has doubled down on his insistence that wind power is a key to solving the global energy crisis.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/09/NYPICHPDPICT000025145930.jpg?w=953)
Because the wind doesn’t at all times blow and the sun doesn’t at all times shine, keeping the lights on would require much more backup resources.
This “reserve margin” – principally, the amount of generating capability available to step in and meet electric demand – will need to increase from the current 20% to over 100%.
In other words, for each MW of generating capability in 2040, there could have to be an equal amount or more in reserve.
That’s like having to buy a second automobile and keep it idling all the time in case the first one won’t start.
The Scoping Plan claims this will likely be completed by constructing over 20,000 MW of so-called “dispatchable emissions-free generating resources” (DEFRs) and installing over 12,000 MW of battery storage.
Those claims are fantasy.
Start with DEFRs, that are generators that burn pure hydrogen manufactured from surplus wind and solar energy.
They’ve yet to be invented (we repeat – they don’t yet exist). Nor do any large-scale business plants to manufacture green hydrogen exist either.
Hydrogen can’t be transported in existing natural gas pipelines.
A completely recent infrastructure will need to be built.
Assuming a recent technology will likely be invented by whatever date politicians decree is silly.
That’s not how technology works.
![Danish power giant Orsted has invested heavily in the US market — and also lost heavily. The company faces billions in additional losses in the US if it does not receive future subsidies and cash.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/09/NYPICHPDPICT000020007968.jpg?w=1024)
Just ask everyone working on business fusion power, which has been just 30 years off for the last 50 years.
As for battery storage, 12,000 MW will provide at most 48,000 megawatt-hours of actual electricity.
Which will sound like loads but based on the Recent York Independent System Operator’s (NYISO) most up-to-date forecast, on a windless and cold winter evening in 2040, it will keep the lights on for under one hour.
The materials requirements for batteries are also staggering, which is one reason why replacing existing internal combustion cars and trucks will likely be not possible.
![Children in the Democratic Republic of Congo mining copper and cobalt, rare and precious materials required for the manufacturing of electric batteries.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/09/NYPICHPDPICT000025146442.jpg?w=1024)
Batteries require large quantities of cobalt, much of which is now mined in the Congo using child and slave labor.
In addition they require lots of graphite, most of which comes from China – the same with the rare minerals needed for wind turbines and solar panels.
Ultimately, nothing Recent York does could have any measurable impact on world climate because the state’s carbon emissions are minuscule compared to the 35 billion metric tons of total global emissions.
So long as China, which accounts for nearly one-third of world energy-related carbon emissions, India, and other developing nations focus policies on economic growth, fairly than cutting emissions, Recent York’s efforts could have no environmental value.
![Miners in China, where materials such as graphite are excavated and also used to build electric batteries.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/09/NYPICHPDPICT000025146583.jpg?w=1024)
Nevertheless, if politicians and environmentalists were serious about zero-emissions goals, they’d abandon the electrification mandates, and abandon reliance on wind, solar, battery storage, DEFRs, green hydrogen, and other unrealistic and unreliable energy sources.
As an alternative, they’d embrace the one existing technology that dare not speak its name: nuclear power.
Unlike wind and solar, nuclear plants run all the time.
Recent, small modular reactors will offer greater safety, lower costs, and straightforward scalability to meet increased electricity demand.
![Busses made by Proterra, a California-based electric vehicle company which recently announced it was going bankrupt.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/09/NYPICHPDPICT000020239162.jpg?w=1024)
Storing spent fuel is a political issue, not a technological one, for which the best solution is to recycle and reuse it, as France has done for the last half-century without incident.
The country can be developing a everlasting storage site for nuclear waste that may not be reprocessed.
The economist Herb Stein once quipped that anything that can’t go on without end, won’t.
That’s true of Recent York’s current alternative energy madness.
It won’t save the world, but it can grind down the state’s economy and its residents until the folly is just too great to ignore.
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Jonathan Lesser is the president of Continental Economics and an adjunct fellow with the Manhattan Institute.