“How the Green Energy Narrative confuses things”, by Russ Schussler JUDITH CURRY, CLIMATE ETC.

“There is a powerful but misleading narrative supporting a green energy transition. A follow up piece will look more broadly at the general narrative supporting a transition to net zero.”

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How the Green Energy Narrative confuses things

Posted on January 30, 2025 by curryja | 9 Comments

by Russ Schussler (Planning Engineer)

Prequel to “Unravelling the narrative supporting a green energy transition.”

There is a powerful but misleading narrative supporting a green energy transition. A follow up piece will look more broadly at the general narrative supporting a transition to net zero. This prequel will provide some detail on a few components of the energy narrative and how this misleading narrative was established. The green energy narrative works somewhat like a magician’s patter, overemphasizing many things of irrelevance and distracting the audience from the important things going on. Misdirection ensures small truths are misinterpreted and magnified, leading to completely unrealistic hopes and expectations.

Misleading green narratives often start with Academics. As I noted here:

Overwhelmingly the academic articles I read are good. Usually, the authors carefully describe the limitations of their findings and recommendations. Sometimes they hint as to what remains to be worked out. I’m afraid this does not stop individuals, the media, and some policy makers from ignoring the qualifications and limitations inherent in their findings. The situation is worse when they leave it to the reader to ferret out the limitations of their findings. In very rare instances some academics will go beyond what has been demonstrated with exaggerated claims. I don’t know if this is done through ignorance, accident, hubris or for purposes of self-advancement.

For example, there have been many simple studies examining how much energy might be produced by a green resource, or set of green resources, such as wind and solar power. These studies ignore important issues such as deliverability, timing, reliability and costs. Based on simple studies the media, activists and policy makers frequently conclude that such resources can be used near universally on a large scale to provide electric service to consumers effectively, efficiently and economically.

Slightly more sophisticated studies or demonstrations will look at additional factors beyond potential availability of energy. But typically, not enough relevant factors to justify the hope and expectations they engender. Justifying a green energy transition requires that multiple critical factors all be compared in the same assessment. For example, looking at what reliability levels might be achieved without considering potential costs cannot inform policy makers as to the feasibility of such options. Similarly looking at potential costs without considering the reliability impacts of the resources does not provide sufficient guidance either. Millions of incomplete studies looking at various needs divorced from other critical needs when studied, cannot later be combined to provide the big picture needed for a major green transition.

As with the magician’s patter, the spun narrative saying “look here” at isolated “facts” distracts the audience from what is hidden. Mechanisms of narrative control and misdirection support the green energy narrative as well. A magician will make quite a showing that the levitating lady is not supported from below. He will then go on to focus your attention as he shows there is no support from the side. Concluding will show you clearly there is no support from above. But rest assured the whole time she is supported and not floating. The means of support shifts as the magician goes through his patter. In the green energy narrative costs have been demonstrated, environmental impacts have been demonstrated, reliability has been demonstrated, deliverability has been demonstrated and all shown to possibly work, BUT NOT AT THE SAME TIME. In the eyes of many, such demonstrations cumulatively strengthen the green energy narrative. However, the gullible audience will be shocked when wind, solar and batteries are not at all well suited to support electric generation on their own.

The green energy narrative may be losing steam at this point, leaving many to wonder, “why is that movement stalling when this narrative is so compelling?” This piece and the follow up will provide some explanation as to why the narrative is not what it appears to be. This “prequel” posting will now highlight three tricks of the green energy narrative: misleading language, false problem and narrative control.

Misleading Language

It’s often not possible to know what is being claimed for various green alternatives because of vagaries in the language employed. There are crucial differences between installed capacity, effective capacity and firm capacity. However, it’s not uncommon to see references only to similar capacity levels when comparing installed wind capacity to firm hydro capacity. Costs can be referenced as fixed, variable, incremental, sunk, avoidable, O&M, lifetime and more. It’s not uncommon to see comparisons of resources where the type of cost being compare is not specified and even in some cases where resources are compared on using incompatible cost comparisons. There are many misleading uses of language that could be referenced, but perhaps the term “renewable” itself is one of the most misleading bits of language advancing the green agenda.

All “renewable” options have a variety of pros and cons. In terms of providing reliable power that supports the grid, hydro power is a great resource. Hydro dams are among the strongest resources on the grid for serving challenging loads but they cannot be conveniently located in most cases. In terms of the environment and ecosystems, hydro raises serious concerns for many. Biomass too, provides good support but it also is plagued by environmental concerns. The availability of geothermal plants, another grid supporting resource, is severely limited and some take issue with them because they emit CO2. Wind, solar and batteries are usually seen as less environmentally challenging. Additionally, many areas can harness some wind and solar more readily than hydro or geothermal energy. Unfortunately, these resources do not readily support the grid.

Different “renewable” resources have vastly differing capabilities. There is vast potential to develop some ‘renewables”. Some “renewables do a great job supporting the grid. Some “renewables” have low energy costs in some areas. Some “renewables” are environmentally sound in some areas. No matter how well individual “renewable” resources might be combined to tick off all the boxes of importance, that doesn’t mean that any combination of “renewable” resources can be found that will work well for any given area. It means little that hydro and geothermal provide excellent support for the grid in an area where you can only add wind and solar. Similarly, just because solar and wind have potential environmental benefits that doesn’t cancel out environmental concerns around hydro in delicate ecosystems.

The green energy transition hopes to obtain high penetration levels of seemingly generic “renewables”. Unfortunately, for most areas, there are no compatible combinations that at any significantly high penetration level that can provide affordable, environmentally responsible energy in a reliable manner. Referring broadly to what “renewables” can and might do, serves to hide this inconvenient truth.

For further information, these positing discuss in more detail the confusion introduced by the term “renewables” and how that serves to unduly bolster the narrative: Time to retire the term ‘renewable energy’ from serious discussion and energy policy directives , Part II and Part 3. These postings concluded with this observation:

The terms renewable and nonrenewable command a lot of undeserved power and influence with the public and policy makers. Rather than educating and informing, they often serve to confuse and misdirect energy policy. More sophisticated understandings around what is clean, green, sustainable, environmentally sound and workable are needed. The renewable/nonrenewable dichotomy is hurting our ability to move forward with potentially valuable workable technologies and giving too big a boost to poorly thought-out boondoggles.

The False Problem – Intermittency is not THE problem for Wind and Solar

It is a fallacy to assume that because part or some of the difficulties associated with a technology can be overcome, that therefore all of the problems associated with a technology can be overcome. Worst case for a “partial solutions fallacy” is when a major problem is hidden by presenting a minor problem as the major stumbling block. Primarily focusing on the minor problem incorrectly implies that there will be smooth sailing once this solvable problem is overcome by hiding the large problem.

To implement a green transition bolstered by heavy wind and solar, all associated problems must be addressed. The major problem associated with wide-scale use of these resources cannot be ignored.

The real problem is that wind, solar and batteries do not readily provide essential reliability services and support the grid. Most of the talk is around addressing intermittency through batteries and other storage approaches. Misdirection here focuses on intermittency, the smaller problem, while ignoring the major problem.

The intermittency of wind and solar certainly produce challenges for a green energy transition. These challenges are likely not insurmountable ones. I have written on the problems of intermittency and how accommodating the impacts of wind and solar will raise costs and lower reliability above projections. These assessments have been proven correct over the intervening years. Yes, intermittency can be addressed through storage and backup, albeit at substantial costs and complexity. The long-term problems associated with wind and solar due to their intermittency could and may likely be made manageable with improved technology and decreasing costs. But such changes will not make wind, solar and batteries comparable to more conventional generating resources, such that they can play a large role in a green energy transition, because the large problem is not intermittency.

Overcoming intermittency though complex and expensive resource additions at best gets us around a molehill which will leave a huge mountain ahead. Where will grid support come from? Wind, solar and batteries provide energy through an electronic inverter. In practice, they lean on and are supported by conventional rotating machines. Essential Reliability Services include the ability to ramp up and down, frequency support, inertia and voltage support. For more details on the real problem see this posting. “Wind and Solar Can’t Support the Grid” describes the situation and contains links to other past postings provide greater detail on the problems.

The green energy narrative is misleading in presenting intermittency as the major problem and implying that as we address this problem, wind and solar become comparable resources to more conventional generating resources. The green energy narrative hides the problems of asynchronous inverter-based generation when it can, and minimizes the concerns around this technology when it can’t.

When forced to confront the fact that inverter-based generation causes problems, the green response is that inverter technology can be made to perform “like” conventional rotating generation. “Like” will not be near good enough in the foreseeable future. As the real problem becomes more apparent, the narrative falls back on misleading language to further hide the real problem.

Narrative Control – Shameless Hucksterism and the Media

The green energy narrative is propelled by stories of success. Often these “successes” are very different from what seemed to be represented. We see great stories of planned projects that should do wonderful things, but they go down the memory hole as they prove not to work out. We see incomplete stories where they talk of power generated but not of associated costs or how much better other alternatives might have been. There is no shortage of examples relating to the green overhype that we could examine. Here is a recent one that I’ve been seeing advanced a lot lately: seven countries now use renewables for 100% of their energy. The narrative uses this story to tell us we can do the green transition. Let’s look a little deeper at what is really going.

Under the Headline that “Seven countries now use renewable energy for 100% of their electricity”, the UN’s Renewable Energy Institute bolstered by fluff, from a Stanford Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering. makes the claim that:

Recent data has shown that in 2022, countries including Albania, Paraguay, Ethiopia & Nepal produced more than 99.7% of the electricity they consumed using geothermal, hydro, solar and wind power marking what scientists say is an “irreversible tipping point” that will see fossil fuels phased out.

An “irreversible tipping point” in “renewable” energy is quite a claim. Before buying into this “irreversible tipping point, let’s take a cursory look at those seven countries.

1. Albania – 98% hydro, 2% solar PV.

2. Paraguay, – 99+% from hydro dams. They sell excess hydro power to their neighbors.

3. Ethiopia – 96% hydro. Rest is mostly wind.

4. Nepal – 98.6% hydro 1.4% solar. Non-electric burning of biofuels prevalent.

5. Bhutan 100% hydro.

6. Iceland 75% hydro 24.5 Geothermal.

7. Congo 100% hydro (only 20% of population has access to electricity)

Iceland stands out by being the only nation with geothermal, which make up almost a quarter of their energy supply. This is not surprising as geography greatly limits geothermal opportunities. Albania and Nepal are the only countries with solar making any significant contribution, at around the 2% level. Solar irradiation in these countries ranges from good to high. Ethiopia alone has a significant contribution to electric generation from wind at around 4%. Despite several other countries within this group having excellent potential for wind, they are not taking advantage it. I suspect the advancement of wind in Ethiopia may have more to do with the interest and goals of players in the international community, like France and China, rather than the interests of Ethiopians whose future generations have been saddled by considerable debt to pay for these large foreign sponsored wind projects.

The above headline talks about how these countries get 99.7% of their electricity from geothermal, hydro, solar, and wind power. Without the spin, collectively those countries get close to 99% of their energy from rotating synchronous geothermal and hydro resources and less that 2% of their combined electric energy from wind and solar. The fact that some countries have high amounts of hydro, does not provide evidence that we are approaching a tipping point involving wind and solar. In fact, one could observe that high levels of renewable penetration are associated with low levels of wind and solar.

Let’s focus on the main commonality of hydro power. The base technology is not new and many do not consider large dams to be green. Untapped potential for hydro is largely limited in the developed world. First world countries saw their explosion of hydro dams between the 1930s and 1970s. Reliable power from hydro dams likely will improve lives and economic conditions within these developing countries. But it’s quite a stretch to suggest that their development in third world countries offer any optimism for “renewables” in say California, where they are reverting to older water flow patterns by destroying hydro dams and seeking to replace the energy with expanded wind, solar and batteries.

It should be clear and well known to anyone in the energy or renewable arena that there is hardly any wind generation found within these seven countries. But this wind energy trade association headlines the developments in these seven countries anyway. Somehow, they begin a push for more wind power with bolstering from these seven countries. As a transition they then bring in Norway with a hydro/wind mix. (Readers should note – Norway has only around 5% wind. Additionally, when you look at the total grid which Norway is only a part, the percentage of wind declines even further. Serving sub-components of a grid with high levels of inverter-based generation does not support any claims that an entire grid can have a similarly sized portion of inverter-based generation.) The posting then shamelessly mirrors the magician’s patter to go on about “renewables” and their generic capability, as if that were really a thing. Rounding out, they then talk about how much wind is being installed worldwide in completely different countries. It’s all bunched together in a jumble claiming that we are somehow moving together in the right direction to fight climate change, ending with a plea that the wind permitting process should be made easier.

Six developing countries using basic technology over a century old, joined with Iceland to approach targets nearing 100% “renewable” energy. This somehow is a bellwether for increasing wind and solar? It’s not a substantive argument, just a bunch of disjointed information in a jumble. But unfortunately. the quality of green arguments usually doesn’t matter. Much of the public and even policy makers gobble that stuff up despite the lack of rigor underling the arguments. Glowing headlines of advancements are shared all over social media. In the end, although low on meaningful evidence. it all propels the green energy narrative while feeding hope and increasing expectations. Confidence is built and the committed grow more committed.

Conclusion

It is becoming increasingly apparent that wind, solar and batteries when pursued at high penetration levels result in high costs, lower reliability and poorer operational outcomes. Expectations from the green energy narrative and real-world results are not consistent and this gulf will continue to widen as long as policy makers continue to reflexively buy into the green energy narrative. This piece has attempted to illuminate some of the mechanisms that served to produce and sustain the exceedingly and overly high expectations for a green transition. The narrative was built upon these and other various deceptions to provide disinformation and hide the real-world challenges. Such methods continue to be employed with increasing frequency. The follow to this piece up will more systemically examine the components of the green energy narrative and raise many items of critical importance considerations that the green energy narrative ignores.