Let’s talk

We have two conversations about renewable energy going on simultaneously. On parallel tracks they appear doomed never to meet. The loudest conversation, at the moment, is conducted by those fearful for the future of the planet, that if we don’t manage to wean our lives and economies off fossil fuels soon, it will be too late. Renewable energy, specifically wind and solar energy, is held up as our salvation—our promise of redemption. Those selling this remedy are feasting on fear. Against a backdrop of ever-gloomier prospects for our children, those peddling the elixir of wind and solar energy are selling hope. It matters little that it doesn’t work.

Then there is the conversation conducted mostly by the folks who keep the lights on, by bloggers, a few columnists, government auditors and a smattering of other folks. They know that unless and until we invent and develop large-scale electricity storage, wind and solar powered energy doesn’t work—can’t work. That it simply robs consumers of money and lavishes rewards on a handful of wealthy developers. And it pushes heavy-industry jobs to other parts of the planet that don’t share our zeal for renewable energy. Or, at least, are hedging their bets.

By now surely everyone who cares to know, has learned the basic details of Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk’s scathing indictment of the Liberal government’s mismanagement of the province’s energy file over the past decade. That we paid $37 billion more than necessary on electricity from 2006 to 2012. And because the government has locked itself into long term contracts, Lysyk calculates consumers will overpay by as much as $133 billion over the next 16 years.

And while the government was doling out taxpayer dollars to snake oil salesmen, it neglected the province’s actual electricity system, leaving Ontario’s economy vulnerable to an increasingly unreliable and frail power supply.

The litany of political interference and mismanagement is well-documented elsewhere and I won’t dwell on it here. The story it tells is hardly revelatory to regular readers of these pages—but no less sickening and disheartening.

One of the better accounts is by Thomas Walkom of the Toronto Star. It reveals, I think, the profound disappointment of the writer, who, like many wanted to believe wind and solar could be a meaningful replacement for conventional energy sources.

Sadly, the the remedies Dalton McGuinty and Kathleen Wynne were selling simply don’t work and are ridiculously expensive. Worse, neither of these people is repentant about the damage they have caused. So it will get worse before it gets better.

Ontario’s Liberal government has already tossed aside Lysyk’s observations, assuring consumers and voters that it has figured out the problems. That transition was always going to be painful. After all, places like Germany have figured out how to make renewable energy work. Surely we can too.

This is where the next important conversation begins.

The dirty truth of it is that neither Germany nor any other jurisdiction has figured out how to power a modern economy with an intermittent power supply. Those who profit either financially or politically have clouded reality for many years now. Some had surely hoped that large-scale electricity storage would been invented by now— that voters and consumers wouldn’t realize they had been lied to, until they had found a real solution. But that veil of lies is wearing thin. It remains, however, an open question as to whether we will peer through it—or whether we prefer to be lied to.

Let’s look at Germany’s situation more closely. The country is a leader in renewable energy. It is held as a model for much of the modern world— certainly by elected leaders in California and Ontario. Hundreds of wind and solar plants are scattered across the countryside. Enough to power as much as half of the country’s needs. But it turns out that rarely happens. On calm, cloudy days, it produces less than two per cent of Germany’s power. A convoluted and flawed cap and trade system (beware Ontarians) keeps gas plants sitting idle rather the providing a lower CO2- emitting backup to the variable wind and sun.

So mostly, and increasingly, it is coal that keeps Germany’s lights on. It is why McKinsey, a consultancy, and others expect Germany to miss its CO2 emissions targets— and to miss them badly. The chief reason Germany’s emissions are dropping at all is because high electricity prices have encouraged heavy industry to move jobs elsewhere.

The sad fact is Germany is building a dozen new coal-fired electricity plants this decade alone. Last month, just before sending its delegation to Paris for climate talks, regional politicians gathered for the ceremonial opening a brand new coal-fired electricity generator in Hamburg.

Hamburg’s Mayor Olaf Scholz praised the new coalburning technology embedded in the new plant— boasting that this massive lignite burner is contributing to Germany’s commitment to fighting climate change. That just about sums up the current conversation about energy.

The bottom line is that Germans pay the highest rates for electricity in the world—electricity that is neither clean nor green. Germany is no model.

We need a better conversation about energy.

rick@wellingtontimes.ca

For an in-depth look at Germany’s renewables, visit this link