Renewable energy is “grotesque”
James Hansen, the scientist most responsible for calling attention to the supposed global warming problem, denounced renewable energy as “grotesque" and "fantastical" in a Boston Globe op-ed. He has declared that nuclear energy is the only practical method for reducing CO2 emissions. Many other activists, like Michael Shellenberger and Stewart Brand, take the same position. These activists have noticed that wind and solar are totally impracticable instruments for reducing CO2 emissions because they are insanely expensive and can substitute for fossil fuels only to a limited extent.

The Erratic Energy of Texas Wind
Texas has a large, 18,000-megawatt, wind generation system, mostly in west Texas. Hour by hour output for 10-days of the Texas wind system is shown in the graph. Swings in wind power of 30% or 5,000 megawatts in a few hours are not unusual. A battery big enough to tide the Texas system over the low power spells experienced in 2016 would cost about a half trillion dollars, more than 10 times as much as the entire wind system cost.

Seasonality of Wind and Solar
The graph illustrates the seasonality of wind and solar power in the U.S. Wind power is strongest in the spring and falls to 60% of the spring value in the summer. Solar power is strongest in the summer and falls by nearly half in the winter. These are averages for the whole nation and a local system may have different behavior. This reinforces the necessity of fossil fuel backup for wind and solar.

Utility Scale Wind and Solar Electricity Cost 5-10 Times More
Existing fossil fuel plants cannot be replaced by wind or solar because they supply electricity when wind or solar don’t. The economic contribution of wind or solar is saving fuel in the backup fossil fuel plants. The value of the fuel saved is five times less than the cost of the wind or solar. As the penetration of wind and solar in the grid increases it becomes necessary to add storage batteries to the wind or solar, increasing the cost disparity to ten times.

The Rooftop Solar Scam - Everyone Else Pays
Rooftop solar, lacking economies of scale, generates electricity for approximately 25-cents per kilowatt hour. Subsidies and electricity banking may make rooftop solar competitive with utility power. With rooftop solar the utility loses almost all revenue and provides backup generation capability without compensation. Electricity banking in some jurisdictions forces the utility and taxpayers to substitute 25-cent power for 1.5-cent power. The cost of using more fuel in natural gas plants is 1.5 cents. Everyone else pays for the homeowner’s saving, if any. (The "bank" where electricity is stored for later use is an accounting fiction.)

In my opinion Apple makes a fake claim of using 100% renewable electricity.
Renewable energy producers can separately sell the electricity and a “renewable energy certificate.” Someone purchasing a certificate is allowed to claim to be using the amount of renewable energy represented by the certificate, even though the actual renewable electricity was sold to someone else. For example, Apple claims all its stores are powered by renewable energy but these stores necessarily take electricity from the local grid that in most places is mainly powered by coal and gas. Claims to be using 100% renewable energy are always bookkeeping tricks, a fact rarely revealed by boasting green organizations.

Wind and Solar have colossal subsidies
Wind and solar displace natural gas electricity from backup plants that costs far less per megawatt hour. A subsidy is typically provided by various government programs and higher electricity costs. The industry pretends that the subsidies are small and may soon be phased out.

The CO2 Reduction Fallacies
Displacing electricity from fossil fuels by wind or solar does reduce CO2 emissions, but the price is exorbitant, approximately $200 per metric ton of carbon dioxide emissions reduced. It is difficult to reduce emissions by more than 50 percent. Informed opinion demands nuclear for CO2 reduction. The CO2 problem, if there is one, is in Asia, not the U.S.

You can’t replace fossil fuels with wind and solar
Wind and solar generate electricity according to the weather. Sometimes they generate nothing or very little. A full fleet of dependable plants must be on standby to take over when the wind and solar die. In addition the backup fossil fuel plants, usually natural gas, smooth the erratic flow of electricity from wind or solar, filling in when wind and solar power is reduced.

The outstanding properties of combined cycle natural gas plants make them a natural candidate to fulfill these vital backup functions.

Hitting the Wind and Solar Wall
When solar electricity exceeds about 20 percent of the electricity in a grid, a big problem of too much electricity emerges. For wind the threshold is about 30 percent. This is because wind and solar are peaky, with large peak output compared to average output.

When the wall is reached, either the renewable electricity must be discarded, or else stored in batteries for later use. Discarding is not an option except in emergencies because there is usually a quota for renewable electricity. Batteries are horribly expensive and can double the cost of the electricity.

Wind and solar are not near grid parity
Wind or solar would reach grid parity if they were competitive with other fuels. The advocates claim that wind and solar are approaching grid parity by presenting a fake analysis. To reach grid parity wind or solar need to supply electricity for less than $15 per megawatt hour. $15 is the cost of generating the same megawatt hour with a backup natural gas plant. The backup plants cannot be eliminated or replaced because you can’t count on wind or solar. The only additional cost to use the backup plant. instread of wind or solar is the fuel that costs $15 to generate a megawatt hour. Either wind or solar cost from $80 to $300 per megawatt hour, not remotely close to $15, or grid parity.

Climate Justice - A Political Tool
The non-existent climate catastrophe becomes a tool for recruiting supporters of the Democratic Party if they can be convinced that they are being oppressed by the climate.

State Laws Mandate Renewables
So called renewable portfolio standards are state laws requiring that a certain percentage of electricity be from renewable sources. For example, California requires 60 percent by 2030. This guarantees a market for wind and solar electricity even though they cost at least 5 times as much as natural gas electricity.

The Wind and Solar Mafia
Wind and solar is a gigantic industry. At least $100 billion is entirely wasted each year on subsidies, overpriced electricity and dumb energy projects. The industry is a parasite sucking life from the economy. The waste will become much worse if states continue to pursue “renewable portfolio” goals for wind and solar electricity.

Many people and organizations have a stake in supporting the industry. Advice and intellectual support is provided by consulting firms and academic experts that are in on the racket. The mass media largely has no understanding of the real economics and thus act as dumb conduits for industry propaganda. The utilities are only too happy to build dumb energy projects as long as their electricity customers are mandated to pay for them.

Non-profit environmental organizations, always on the lookout for a new crisis to excite their patrons, embrace dumb energy for its phony environmental benefits. These organizations specialize in advocating policies of the loony tunes variety.

Insanely expensive batteries
If you keep adding wind or solar to the grid a point is reached when the grid can’t handle peak generation from wind or solar. A certain number of fossil fuel plants must be on line to regulate the grid, setting a maximum peak amount of wind or solar allowed. If wind or solar becomes too strong it has to be curtailed, meaning that the energy is effectively thrown away. State laws that force adding more wind or solar than is easily handled have forced utilities to supplement wind or solar with batteries, added to absorb peaks and move the power to a different time of day. The Gemini project near Las Vegas will cost $1.5 billion and generate electricity for about 10 times as much as using existing gas plants. The Gemini battery system will cost $500 million and the batteries will have to be replaced periodically at a cost of $300 million each time.