The University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point is wise enough to ax most of its Liberal Arts courses. Entire departments, including History, will disappear. In tracing the cause, Victor Davis Hanson, in National Review, writes of the suicide of Liberal Arts here. Unfortunately, his essay is more misleading than helpful. Hanson is a Classical scholar and wishes his field to be revived. Here is why it should not be: it is fundamentally dishonest.

By saying this, I do not mean that Dr. Hanson is dishonest, nor do I mean to impugn the honesty of his scholarship. What I mean is that the rationale for it was always dishonest, and his rationale for reviving it is mistaken. I like everyone else my age, learned this stuff in high school. It was part of the curriculum until the 1970s.

Classical studies were always about dividing history in a fundamentally anti-Christian way. There was Classical, Greco-Roman society. We were to admire the ‘steady’ Romans with their virtues and the Greek philosophers like Plato and Aristotle. Science, art, and everything good happened with the Greeks, we were told.

Then there was the Middle Ages. Medieval was (and still is) a term of scorn, just as Classical was a term of approval. We were invited to contemplate an ‘Age of Faith’ and ‘Age of Ignorance’. The inescapable conclusion was that Christianity is bad, bad, bad.

At the end of the Middle Ages was the Renaissance, when civilization revived. After that came the ‘Age of Reason’ and the ‘Enlightenment’ and so on.

Medieval studies proved that this was so much bunk. The modern era started when Christ rose from the grave. If that had not happened, then the modern world, including freedom, democracy, and the cell phone, would never have happened. The fundamental break in History came between Christianity and Ancient World. The first industrial revolution came in Europe in the 11th and 12th centuries. Our world is a continuation of that Medieval world.

If you really want to know what the ancient world was like, it is easy enough to find out. Read accounts of the native people of the world by 16th and 17th-century explorers and colonists. The Indians, the Chinese, the Aztecs, and the Incas hadn’t changed much in 1500 years. Because Europe had advanced so much, these areas were seen as backward and primitive. The ancient world changed very little and very slowly. It persists today as the third world. Third world dirt, poverty, oppression, and smells were all part of the Classical world, too. Classical scholars, understandably, don’t dwell on them.

Classical studies were mainly promoted by atheists for their agenda. Students could not study Christianity (separation of Church and State!), but they were forced to study the religion of the Greeks and Romans. They were also expected to approve it and look down on Christians. Classical studies were little more than dressed-up atheism. I never understood what was so great about a slave society. Greco-Roman societies were all about slaves, but they didn’t count.

Dr. Hanson thinks of himself as a conservative and writes for National Review. He knows that in the Classical view of the world, some people count and some don’t. The ones who do not count became Hillary Clinton’s ‘basket of deplorables’. Clinton, and everyone else her age, were immersed in the Classical world. These studies provided no bulwark against Communism, Nazism, Fascism, genocide, eugenics and a host of other ills. At the root of all of these movements is the conviction that some people count and some people don’t. Christianity teaches that everyone counts; Classical Studies teach that only the ruling class counts.

Classical studies was really about training the future rich and powerful how to disdain the lowly and weak. This is something that (surprisingly) requires years of training. St. Augustine, in his book City of God, wrote that the Romans, before they invaded someone, had first to be convinced that what they were doing was right. They required the most elaborate proofs. This required training, and the orators were well rewarded for their eloquence.

The result of that eloquence was war, plunder and ruin for a defeated city. The unfortunate inhabitants were sold into slavery. Like a disobedient wife (or a deplorable), they deserved a beating. The orator said so.

Classical studies existed to ease the conscience of the rich and powerful. Communists and other left-wing types, bent on enslaving others, were prominent in Classical studies. That was never a bug; it was always the main feature. That is why there is no loss if Classical studies and the entire Liberal Arts dies off. They never enriched anyone’s life in the first place.

Why are areas where wind and solar are being used have such high utility bills? In an interview on ABC-TV, Prof. Bruce Mountain, says that in South Australia the problem is that there is that there is not enough power from wind and solar:

“Every additional unit of production you get from the wind or from the sun, that displaces gas generation, and brings your price down”

Is that true? It seems to be a truism that additional electricity from the wind or sun will displace gas (or fossil fuel) generation. We often hear of advocates for wind power wanting to supply 30% or more of the power in the grid. Can high amounts of intermittent power be utilized effectively?

For answers, consider the following graph of intermittent power (wind+solar) in Germany and losses (generation – consumption) for the years 2000 – 2016.

As you can see, starting in 2011, the losses begin rising in parallel with the rise in intermittent power. In 2011, the 68 billion kWh generated by wind and solar represented 11.8% of the power generated that year. That appears to be the maximum that the grid can absorb. After that, power from the sun and wind just added to the losses in the system, and the grid tried to rid itself of them before it caused a blackout.

This explains why the German CO2 emissions refuse to go down. The amount of power generated from fossil fuels was 339 billion kWh in both 2000 and 2016. Since the same amount of power is being generated with fossil fuels, the same amount of fuel is being consumed and the carbon footprint stays the same.

Despite generating 31.8% of its power from renewables in 2016, Germany is not decarbonizing. The graph shows that adding wind and solar power beyond what can be used to satisfy demand is useless. The power is dissipated as heat or dumped outside the system. This does nothing to decarbonize the country.

What is not dumped are the feed-in tariffs, or in the case of Australia, Renewable Energy Certificates (REC). The money paid to the owner of wind turbines and photovoltaic cells for their electricity still shows up on the ratepayer’s bills, even though the power was not used. This includes the feed-in tariff.

The ratepayer pays for the following: power he uses, tariffs on 12% of the power he uses, useless power and tariffs on that power, tariffs on power that businesses who are big enough to get an exemption use, a ‘strengthened’ grid and ‘strengthened’ interconnectors to dump useless power elsewhere, load shedding equipment and load management equipment for when the wind dies down too quickly to avoid a blackout, and big, expensive batteries.

More energy from the wind and sun will not do a thing to reduce gas generation in South Australia because the grid is already saturated with intermittent energy. Since the energy cannot be used effectively, the amount of electricity generated by gas will not go down. The only thing it does is increase energy costs and blackouts.

It is small wonder then, that the more wind and solar you have in a system, the higher the electric bill.

Source:

All data was sourced from the US EIA. Unfortunately, this is a beta site, but there was no other link to international data yet.

This website has CO2 emissions, generation and consumption figures for every country for the years 1980-2016. This link will make available for download German CO2 emissions.

https://www.eia.gov/beta/international/data/browser/#/?pa=0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000f&c=00000000000g&ct=0&tl_id=40-A&vs=INTL.4008-8-DEU-MMTCD.A&vo=0&v=H&end=2016

The link for German electricity generation is:

https://www.eia.gov/beta/international/data/browser/#/?pa=00000000000000000000000000000fvu&c=ruvvvvvfvtujvv1urvvvvfvvvvvvfvvvou20evvvvvvvvvnvvuvs&ct=0&tl_id=2-A&vs=INTL.2-12-AFG-BKWH.A&ord=CR&vo=0&v=H&end=2016

The link for German electricity consumption is:

https://www.eia.gov/beta/international/data/browser/#/?pa=0000002&c=ruvvvvvfvtujvv1urvvvvfvvvvvvfvvvou20evvvvvvvvvnvvuvs&ct=0&tl_id=2-A&vs=INTL.2-2-AFG-BKWH.A&vo=0&v=H&end=2016

South Australia has the world’s highest electricity prices. The ABC in Australia reports on a new study. This study concludes that the impact of solar and wind energy is to reduce bills, whereas the impact of gas is to increase bills. This is perfectly correct – and perfectly misleading.

The author of the study is Professor Bruce Mountain. He says that the way to lower electricity rates is to reduce the use of fossil fuels in producing electricity. Is he right?

The meat of the study goes something like this. When the wind is blowing, wholesale electricity rates go down. This is true. There is a large amount of wind generating capability in South Australia. When the wind blows, there is competition between vendors for market share, and prices drop.

When the wind dies down, rates go up. All of the wind generators are now idle. Their place is taken by a large number of inefficient gas turbine generators producing expensive energy in the system. The solution, according to Mr. Mountain, is to reduce the amount of electricity generated by these inefficient gas turbines and increase the amount of energy purchased from wind generators.

This is a splendid solution. The South Australian government seems likely to order more wind turbines, which, when the wind stops blowing, will be quite as useless as the ones it already has.

So, why does South Australia have the world’s highest electricity rates? Why do Germany and Denmark, two countries with very different economies than Australia, also have extremely high rates? Answer: all three of them have the same renewables policy.

Background

There are basically three classes of generators to think about:

  • Baseload generators (cheap power)
  1. Coal (and biomass) fired steam plants
  2. Combined-cycle gas turbine plants. These are the most efficient power plants in the world.
  3. Nuclear plants
  • Peaking units (expensive power)
  1. Peaking units are normally conventional gas turbines. These turbines are not efficient
  2. Piston engines.
  3. Hydro. Most hydroelectric power is treated as peaking power. Hydro is dispatchable, but there is not enough of it to provide baseload power, so the power companies use hydro as peaking power because peaking power is more valuable than baseload power.
  • Intermittent power (expensive but heavily subsidized power)
  1. Wind
  2. Solar

Baseload generators are expensive, but since they run all the time and are long-lived these expenses can be amortized, making baseload electricity far cheaper than power from peaking units. Before deregulation, utilities would build enough baseload plants to take care of power needs most of the year

Peaking units were run on very hot days when everyone had their AC on and the demand was very high. They can be fired up almost instantly. They provided an emergency reserve of power for unplanned outages and demands. Peaking units are cheap for their size, but that does not mean they are cheap compared to their power output. They come in small sizes and small generating units do not have the economies of scale like large baseload units. In addition, they are inefficient and natural gas is usually more expensive than coal. By their nature, peaking units provide expensive power to the system.

To give some idea of the costs involved, a baseload unit might provide electricity for between $30-50/mwh. A peaking unit provides power for $300-13,000/mwh. It is a big difference.

The preferred solution was to use coal for baseload power and bring on gas peaking units when needed. Where gas is cheap and plentiful, as is currently the case in the US, it can be substituted for coal.

What South Australia (and Germany, Denmark, etc.) has done is to first construct a large number of subsidized wind and solar (mostly wind) plants. They have also shut down their coal-fired baseload plants. They have not replaced them with other baseload plants.

As a result, South Australia no longer has enough baseload power. When the wind dies down, the grid operator tries to find enough power to prevent a blackout, so expensive peaking units are brought on. These units can be brought on instantly, so the power does not go out, but the power bill does go up.

The governments around the world following this strategy have made no provision for what happens when the wind dies down. Their new strategy seems to be imposing blackouts on less-favored, poorer people. This is known as ‘load shedding’ and will probably be the wave of the future unless they are voted out of office.

The bitter irony in all of this is that these renewables do nothing to reduce CO2 emissions, which is the ultimate reason given for them. Despite having over 30% renewable energy, Germany’s emissions have not gone down in the last 20 years; in fact, they are higher in 2017 than they were 1998. Remember, the peaking units are inefficient. They use far more fuel than a baseload unit.

This means that even though they only supply power when the wind dies down, the overall fuel consumption is higher than it was using baseload units. Put another way, if you scrapped the wind power and went back to utilizing baseload power, you would use less fuel, and hence have lower greenhouse emissions.

Only one country follows this strategy – the United States. The only country reducing its emissions – by switching from baseload coal to baseload gas – is also the United States. It also has the lowest-cost electricity. Australia is both a coal and a gas exporter, so both fuels are readily available. Unfortunately, in Australia gas is extremely expensive and not competitive with coal. If South Australia wishes to lower its electricity bills and reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, it should add efficient supercritical coal plants to its energy mix until it has sufficient baseload power.