'Renewable Energy' Enthusiasts Vastly Underestimate Storage Requirements, according to the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons

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Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS)

Jun 08, 2021, 09:13 ET

TUCSON, Ariz., June 8, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- In medical settings, power cut-offs are not merely an inconvenience but can be a life-or-death issue. Yet the storage capacity needed to assure reliable electricity in a system dependent on "renewables" is vastly greater than currently available or realistically achievable, writes physicist Howard Hayden, Ph.D., in the summer issue of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons. The February Texas Big Freeze showed the disastrous insufficiency of the current system.

"Prestigious medical publications advocate without reservation for renewable energy, which is 'expected to increasingly supplant the traditional fossil fuel energy industries of coal, oil, and natural gas,'" he writes. However, they do not consider key practical factors. These include:

  • Of current sources of electricity, only coal and nuclear have on-site fuel storage. Natural gas requires just-in-time fuel delivery.
  • Solar and wind are inherently intermittent, and would need to generate many times the peak load energy requirements for storage.
  • Current storage schemes include pumped hydroelectric power at favorable locations and batteries.
  • In the U.S., the total energy capacity of installed batteries is less than 1,000 MWh. By comparison, a single nuclear power plant typically produces 1,200 MW around the clock and will produce around 20,000,000 MWh between refueling times.
  • Energy is wasted in storage, retrieval, and transmission.

Advocates for renewables need to be asked: What are the year-round capacity factors for the generating systems? How many days' storage is required to achieve in excess of 99.9% reliability? And how much power would be required to store that energy?

Based on these considerations, Dr. Hayden concludes that "renewables are a skin-and-bones occasional helper, not a robust employee."

The Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons is published by the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), a national organization representing physicians in all specialties since 1943.

SOURCE Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS)

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