Ralph Ellis describes the problems with renewable energy and why it is a danger to put political muscle behind the efforts to move us to so-called “free” sources of energy. (LINK)

However, it is my belief that this sublime day-dream actually holds the seeds for our economic decline and for social disorder on an unprecedented scale. Why? Because no technical and industrial society can maintain itself on unreliable and intermittent power supplies.

Tidal power is linked to the moon.

This sinusoidal tidal pattern produces four slack periods during each day when the tide is turning…This means that for every tidal system installed, a conventional power station will have to be either built or retained to ensure continuity of energy supply. But this power station will have to be up and running all the time, what is known in the industry as ’spinning-reserve’

Wind power is unreliable

The truth of the matter is that there are numerous days without significant winds across the UK, and when those conditions occur it doesn’t matter how much installed generating capacity we have, for it all goes off-line. A report from Denmark 2 indicates that the Danish ‘wind carpet’, which is the largest array of wind turbines in Europe, generated less than 1% of installed power on 54 days during 2002.

Power can be stored in in pumped storage systems. Essentially, these systems work by pumping water to the top of a mountain in off-peak hours. The water runs downhill through turbines when the power is required. These systems can provide power for a very limited time, and the environmentalist are opposed to them because they are built in “areas of outstanding beauty”.

There are other power storage system…they are all expensive and inefficient.

Read the whole thing if you are interested in learning about the high hurdles required to move toward more renewable energy.  (LINK)

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