There is no shortage of net-zero (Nut Zero) content on these pages. We’re also not shy about taking any or all of the states in the ISO New England system to the rhetorical woodshed. Energy policy in the Northeast is blinkered and on a path to doom. The only positive news has been recent moves by New Hampshire to break the cycle of abuse by investing in the idea of energy independence from the Northeast grid.
And while Gulf of Maine Wind may be on its last legs, more needs to happen here, in the Granite State, and throughout the region. My never-ending pursuit of evidence to help reverse decades of bad regional green energy policy led me to an excellent resource. Citizens Task Force on Wind Power Maine. Specifically, this post.
It offers a real-world look at what would be required to meet the lie that pretends to be net-zero. Warning to “graduates” of the public school system. There’s a lot of math, and it’s not favorable to the fantasy that “net-zero” can be achieved, even if the other green-crak-pipe hallucinations trying to justify the effort were true. [Related: So, Net Zero is Like “Ending” Child Trafficking by Trafficking Children]
As we’ve noted in the past. It can’t be done. There isn’t enough money or material for even a first go.
- Another Look at the Human Cost of Net Zero and The Green Agenda
- Science Once Again Punches Net Zero In Its Stupid Face
- The Left’s Net Zero Colonialism Will Kill Billions of Brown People
- Math is Hard But Net Zero Emissions Math is Harder – It Can’t Be Done by 2050+
There are many more that I’d like to add some snippets from the post at Citizens Task Force on Wind Power Maine, as they are focused on the New England Grid.
It is assumed, 1) all W/S output, based on historic weather data, is loaded into batteries, 2) all demand is drawn from batteries, based on historic load on the grid, as published by ISO-NE.
An annual storage balance was created, which needed to stay well above zero; the batteries are not allowed to “run dry” in bad W/S years. The balance was used to determine the wind and solar capacities needed to achieve it.
New England would need a battery system with a capacity of about 10 TWh of DELIVERABLE electricity from batteries to HV grid.
Daily (Wind/Solar) W/S output would be fed to the batteries, 140 TWh/y
Daily demand would be drawn from the batteries, 115 TWh/y in 2024
Battery system roundtrip loss, HV to HV, would be 25 TWh/y, more with aging
Transmission and Distribution to users incur additional losses of about 8%, or 0.08 x 115 = 9.2 TWh
Fed to user meters = 115 – 9.2 = 105.8 TWh
The battery system would cover any multi-day W/S lulls throughout the year
Batteries would supplement W/S output, as needed, 24/7/365
W/S would charge excess output into the batteries, 24/7/365
Tesla recommends not charging to more than 80% full and not discharging to less than 20% full, to achieve normal life of 15 years and normal aging at 1.5%/y.
The INSTALLED battery capacity would need to be about 10 TWh / (0.6, Tesla factor x aging factor x 0.9, outage factor) = 18.5 TWh, delivered as AC at battery outlet.
The turnkey cost would be about $600/installed kWh, delivered as AC at battery outlet, 2024 pricing, or $600/kWh x 18.5 billion kWh = $11.1 trillion, about every 15 years.I did not mention annually increasing insurance costs of risky W/S projects.
If 50% were borrowed from banks, the cost of amortizing $5.5 trillion at 6% over 15 years = $557 billion/y
If 50% were from Owners, the cost of amortizing $5.5 trillion at 10% over 15 years = $708 billion/y
The two items total $1265 billion/y, about the same as the New England GDP.
There are many more cost items.
There’s an excellent related post here, and many more if you wander the site.
The problem is not complex. The cost of Net Zero would require the entire GDP of the region to set up and run for at best a few decades, if we’re lucky, and there are net-zero failures, battery facility fires (common and devastating to the local biosphere), or other issues.
Battery systems likewise result in significant waste.
Round-Trip Losses of Battery Systems
Because of round-trip losses, batteries are a net consumer of electricity. Of the 150 battery plants (1,022 MW) that reported operating battery storage capacity on Form EIA-860 in 2019, 109 plants (850 MW) also reported electricity discharge and charge data on Form EIA-923 in 2019.
These 109 plants, using a mix of storage technologies, including li-ion, reported a gross discharge of 458,169 MWh, and a gross charge of 553,705 MWh, in 2019; for an average AC-to-AC round-trip loss of 20.85%, as measured from inlet to front-end power electronics, through battery, to outlet of back-end power electronics.
Losses of various storage technologies range from about 35% to less than 20%, for an average of 20.85%; that average has decreased, due to the increased use of li-ion batteries.
If we ignore all the carbon emission costs of manufacturing, transportation, installation, maintenance, replacement, and end-of-life waste stream, Net-Zero is still a significant waste of resources at a cost no one can afford. An unnecessary transition to solve a problem that doesn’t even exist, and that we might not be able to come back from.
New Hampshire needs to accelerate its plans for energy independence, not only by deregulating and working to exit ISO New England, but also by advocating for the repeal of the Jones Act. We also need oil and gas onboarding infrastructure and pipelines to carry fossil fuels from Portsmouth north and west, not a battery storage facility at Schiller Station.
The Granite State is the only state in the region attempting to consider a sane, responsible, pro-growth energy policy. We’d love to have Maine come along with us for the ride, but I’m not convinced even New Hampshire can sustain this essential mission to ensure we have not just power for today, but tomorrow, and then some left over to sell to the states blinkered by the green-colored glasses.
