This last week, in the comment section of the EnergyCollective, I saw the same myth that I have seen time and time again regarding wind power:
Fact 1: renewables are aleatorically intermittent, and so unreliable.
Fact 2: due to Fact 1, they cannot provide energy when it is needed, but only when and in the quantity they can
Fact 3: users have to get energy when they need it, not when it is aleatorically provided
Fact 4: to date, there is no storage system that can be useful for a complex industrial society
Fact 5: due to facts 1 to 4, renewables need to have a back up system that can cope with the needs of the users.
Fact 6: that back up system cannot be just stopped and then put to generation in a few seconds or minutes, and usually have to generate at low efficiency to maintain the back up at call point, generating added costs, besides the usuals as maintainance, lost profits, complex distribution grid, etc.
… not surprisingly ending with climate crisis denialism in “Fact” 8, since the name of the game here is clearly not arguing by starting with facts and seeing what conclusion you arrive it, but rather is myth creation and propagation in support of an already selected conclusion.
While many people don’t know what “aleatorically” means, many would actually share the misconception that windpower is an intrinsically intermittent resource. However, for wind power, the “Fact 1” is in many cases “Falsehood 1”. Even though individual wind turbines are intermittent, for many wind resource regions, it turns out that a substantial share of wind power is not intermittent at all, in either their “by chance (aleatorically) and unpredictable” component or their “by chance (aleatorically), though predictable” component.
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