Renewables Fallacies: Errors of Omission & Errors of Commission
The Deceptive Arithmetic of Renewables vis-à-vis Elemental Energy
Housekeeping:
Firstly, a doff of the hat to
for the inspiration for this essay.Introduction: Mathematical Gymnastics
The modern discourse surrounding renewable energy—a misnomer—is rife with grand promises and seductive arithmetic. At the heart of this narrative lies the claim that renewables—primarily wind and solar—are not only cleaner but also cheaper than nuclear power, more poetically referred to as “elemental energy” as coined by
. Central to this claim is the ubiquitous metric of the Levelised Cost of Energy (LCOE), a supposedly neutral calculation designed to compare the costs of generating electricity across technologies.Alas, as with any story too good to be true, the devil resides in the details—or more precisely, in what is deliberately excluded. LCOE is not a fair measure of cost; it is a tool for deception that systematically skews the arithmetic in favour of renewables. In forensic accounting fraud detection, there are two main error types, errors of omission and errors of commission. This is not just an error of omission; it is an error of commission. One that misleads policymakers, investors, and the public into believing in a mirage of economic and environmental progress.
A Dispatchable Kilowatt Is Not an Intermittent Kilowatt
To begin with, the LCOE treats a kilowatt-hour (kWh) of electricity from an intermittent source, such as wind or solar, as equivalent to a kilowatt-hour from a dispatchable source, such as elemental power or natural gas. This is a profound fallacy. A dispatchable kilowatt-hour can be called upon when needed, ensuring grid stability and reliability. In contrast, an intermittent kilowatt-hour is available only when weather conditions permit—regardless of whether the grid requires it. Accordingly, I will refer to renewables hereon as intermittents.
The grid must therefore adapt to the whims of these unreliable contributors, imposing systemic costs that are excluded from LCOE calculations. Intermittents are not merely neutral additions to the grid; they are net nuisances that require extensive infrastructure for backup generation, storage, and grid stabilization. Without dispatchable backup or large-scale energy storage, intermittents cannot function as primary energy providers, a reality conveniently ignored in the deceptive arithmetic of renewables.
The Seven Omissions of the LCOE
LCOE’s omissions go far beyond reliability. It systematically excludes or underestimates a series of critical costs:
Backup Energy Costs: Wind and solar must be complemented by dispatchable sources—often fossil fuels—to maintain grid reliability during periods of low generation. These costs are excluded from the LCOE, creating a false sense of parity with baseload power.
Subsidies: Intermittents benefit from extensive government subsidies, tax credits, and mandates that artificially lower their apparent costs. Fossil fuels and elemental, conversely, are burdened with regulatory and taxation policies that inflate their costs.
Systems Integration Costs: Intermittents require significant investment in grid management, from frequency regulation to demand-response mechanisms. These systemic costs are entirely absent from LCOE.
Grid Upgrading Costs: Wind and solar farms are often located in remote areas, necessitating new transmission infrastructure. The costs of building and maintaining these networks are not reflected in LCOE calculations.
Lifecycle Maintenance Costs: The operation and maintenance of wind turbines and solar panels—particularly as they age—are higher than often reported. Degradation rates and shorter lifespans make their lifecycle costs significantly higher than claimed.
Environmental Externalities: The mining, transportation, manufacturing, and construction of intermittents imposes significant environmental costs. Rare earth metals for wind turbines and photovoltaic cells for solar panels require energy-intensive processes that are conveniently ignored in the renewable narrative.
Decommissioning Costs: At the end of their useful lives, wind turbines and solar panels leave behind mountains of waste, much of which is difficult or impossible to recycle and ends up in landfill. These costs, too, are omitted from LCOE.
The Mirage of Emission Reductions
Perhaps the most egregious error of commission is the claim that renewables will significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. I won't speculate as to who is responsible for it, albeit there are obviously perverse incentives at play. Intermittent sources require backup generation, which is typically provided by natural gas plants. The cycling of these plants—ramping up and down to accommodate fluctuations in wind and solar output—actually increases emissions per kWh relative to their steady-state operation. Furthermore, the energy-intensive processes involved in manufacturing and deploying Intermittents often negates much of their supposed environmental benefit.
A Fair Comparison
A truthful comparison of energy sources must account for these omissions. Further, it must normalize costs by lifecycle, capacity factors, and power densities. It must recognize that the energy density of fossil fuels and elemental power far exceeds that of supposed renewables, allowing for smaller land footprints and lower material throughput. Ultimately, we must confront the fact that wind and solar are not truly renewable; their reliance on finite resources and energy-intensive manufacturing makes them anything but sustainable.
Intermittents as a Kansas City Shuffle
The promotion of wind and solar energy as "renewables" is not just a case of errors in arithmetic—it’s a Kansas City Shuffle—a con where everyone looks left while the real game unfolds to the right. The term, borrowed from misdirection tricks in confidence games, perfectly encapsulates the sleight of hand used to frame these technologies as the solution to our energy and environmental challenges.
While the world focuses on the touted benefits—lower operational costs, reduced emissions, and the promise of sustainability—the hidden trade-offs quietly undermine the narrative. Policymakers, financiers, and the public are lulled into complacency, ignoring the long-term consequences of material extraction, grid instability, and lifecycle emissions. The bait is the image of a clean, green future; the switch is the complex, costly, and unsustainable infrastructure required to prop up these technologies.
Intermittents divert attention from elemental power, which is genuinely scalable, dense, and reliable, while quietly embedding systemic fragility into our grids. The Kansas City Shuffle here isn’t just a clever misdirection; it’s a strategic blunder that risks the very environmental progress it claims to champion. We just need to look to Germany's dark doldrums—when the sun doesn't shine, a.k.a. dunkelflaute—to understand its impact on energy security. Recognizing this deception is not just a matter of correcting arithmetic but a necessary step toward reshaping the energy debate with honesty and mathematical rigour.
Conclusion: The Arithmetic of Deception
The LCOE and its counterpart, the Levelized Cost of Storage (LCOS), are not neutral tools of analysis. They are instruments of a deliberate bait-and-switch, designed to obscure the systemic costs and limitations of wind and solar energy. This is not an innocent error of omission; it is a wilful error of commission, one that perpetuates a misleading narrative of cheap and clean energy.
True progress in energy policy demands an honest reckoning with these realities. Until then, the arithmetic of renewable energy will remain a deception, promising much and delivering little, while the world’s energy needs go unmet.
Cheers,
CHT
P.S. This article is not implying that solar and wind are redundant locally. The innovations in these technologies and the batteries used to store their power efficiently, are phenomenal. Locally, they are tremendous; globally, they do not scale.