Preface. Wind and solar advocates don’t include transmission and backup costs in their net energy and cost calculations. But without fossil backup, the electric grid will come down due to lack of storage.

There is almost nowhere left to put pumped hydro storage in the ten states that already have 80% of hydropower, there is only one Compressed Air Energy Storage plant in the U.S. in one of the few salt domes in three states along the Gulf coast that have salt domes (with half of it powered by natural gas turbines), and it would cost $41 trillion dollars to make Sodium Sulfur (NaS) batteries lasting 15 years to back up just one day of U.S. electricity generation (Friedemann 2015).

Mexico is asking renewable companies to pay for transmission and natural gas / coal backup for when the wind isn’t blowing or the sun shining. About time, because this is all a gigantic waste of money if wind and solar can’t stand on their own, a dumb investment when we could have used the money to convert to organic farming, plant more trees, beef up infrastructure and other efforts to prepare for peak oil, coal, and natural gas and the lifestyle that will be forced upon us.

Alice Friedemann   www.energyskeptic.com  author of “When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the Future of Transportation”, 2015, Springer, Barriers to Making Algal Biofuels, and “Crunch! Whole Grain Artisan Chips and Crackers”. Podcasts: Collapse Chronicles, Derrick Jensen, Practical Prepping, KunstlerCast 253, KunstlerCast278, Peak Prosperity , XX2 report

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Garcia, D. A. 2020. Renewable firms in Mexico must contribute to grid backup – CFE chief. Reuters.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Private renewable energy firms in Mexico should pay for part of the baseload power underpinning the flow of electricity on the grid, the head of the state power company said….Renewable operators had not been pulling their weight in contributing to the infrastructure that sustains them.

“Wind and photovoltaic (plants) don’t pay the CFE for the backup,” said Bartlett, referring to the cost of power generation from fossil fuels, mostly natural gas, to guarantee uninterrupted flow. “Do you think it’s fair for the CFE to subsidize these companies that don’t produce power all day?” he asked.

The firms should also start helping to pay transmission costs, he said.

“That’s not a free market, it’s theft,” said Bartlett, a close ally of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who has pledged to hold down electricity rates.

CENACE cited the coronavirus pandemic as a justification, arguing that intermittent wind and solar power is not consistent with ensuring constant electricity supply.

References

Friedemann, Alice. 2015. When Trucks stop running: Energy and the future of transportation. Springer