More Renewable Energy = More Expensive Energy

This post can be viewed as a companion to Steve’s post immediately below. “Greens” are hailing the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan as a Great Leap Forward, economically as well as environmentally. As I understand it, the EPA is even claiming that requiring more energy to be generated via wind and solar will not increase its cost. That is ridiculous, of course, as wind and solar are nowhere near as efficient as fossil fuels.

At Watts Up With That?, Willis Eschenbach has demonstrated this elegantly. He has plotted the price of electricity in 20 EU countries and the United States against the installed renewable capacity in those same countries, expressed as watts per capita. Here is the result; click to enlarge:

rstudioscreensnapz027

The numbers don’t lie: the obvious conclusion is that the more you rely on renewable energy, the more expensive your energy will be. But, hey, don’t forget–if we believe the goofy global warming models that have already been proved wrong, spending countless billions on the administration’s boondoggle will lower the Earth’s temperature by 0.018 degree! In 2100. So if you are still around, you can try to feel the difference.

Notice: All comments are subject to moderation. Our comments are intended to be a forum for civil discourse bearing on the subject under discussion. Commenters who stray beyond the bounds of civility or employ what we deem gratuitous vulgarity in a comment — including, but not limited to, “s***,” “f***,” “a*******,” or one of their many variants — will be banned without further notice in the sole discretion of the site moderator.

Responses