Over the last few years a furious battle has also been raging in academia between those who say we can and should shift towards a 100 per cent renewable energy grid, and those who say we can’t possibly, should stop renewables in their tracks and choose nuclear (or “clean” coal) instead. The battle between the academic “can’s” and “can’t do’s” over the issue of renewables has become increasingly bitter in recent years and the coal industry has been watching on in quiet admiration, particularly as the false arguments often dominate the public domain. The coal industry is satisfied because coal and nuclear share a common lack of flexibility, an attachment to increasingly redundant concepts such as “baseload” and a centralised grid, and until carbon is priced the coal industry reckons it can beat nuclear on cost, and so protect its turf. The latest paper – “The feasibility of 100% renewable electricity systems: A response to critics”, published in Science Direct – seeks to expose and dismiss the “myths” used by scholarly journals, popular articles, media, websites, blogs and statements by politicians to attack wind and solar. “The rapid growth of renewable energy (RE) is disrupting and transforming the global energy system, especially the electricity industry,” Diesendorf and Elliston write. “As a result, supporters of the politically powerful incumbent industries and others are critiquing the feasibility of large-scale electricity generating systems based predominantly on RE.” Diesendorf and Elliston says it is clear that 100 per cent renewable energy systems – including those predominantly supplied by variable sources such as wind and solar, can be readily designed to meet the needs of reliability, security and affordability. They say the main critiques against the idea contain “factual errors, questionable assumptions, important omissions, internal inconsistencies, exaggerations of limitations and irrelevant arguments.”
Renew Economy 19th June 2018 read more »
