Opposition to, complaints about, and lawsuits filed against solar and wind power projects continues to increase throughout the U.S., including by environmental groups. Additionally, leaders overseas have warned against the Biden Administration’s rush to eliminate fossil fuels for “Green Energy” sources. Last month, a science professor warned Utah legislators about this as well.
Renewable energy is a failed path, scientist tells Utah legislators
A Utah legislative committee this week gave 45 minutes to a scientist who argued that policy makers across the globe are committing a grave mistake by turning to renewable energy.
William Hayden Smith, a professor of earth and planetary sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, wrote a research paper with colleagues in Switzerland and South Africa that claims to calculate a full cost of producing electricity from various sources. The paper was published this year in the Journal of Sustainable Development, a Canadian scientific journal.
“Now everyone will say that wind turbines and photovoltaics are cheaper than fossil fuels,” he told legislators. “That’s a stretch.”
He said the standard for comparing costs of electricity sources is called “Levelized Cost of Electricity,” which is calculated by adding up the total costs of a source over its lifetime and dividing it by the total energy expected from that source over the lifetime.
But Smith and his co-authors created an alternative metric they are calling the “full cost of electricity,” which he says factors in renewable energy costs not considered in LCOE, including the cost of storing power when renewables are not producing and the cost of replacing solar panels and windmills when they wear out.
He pointed to recent problems in Germany, where energy prices have shot up after Russia invaded Ukraine. He said Germany’s rush to renewables and decision to shut down nuclear plants is costing them now.
