The Real War on Science

The 'compelling argument against them' is 'they don't make sense' (in other words, far too expensive).

If those power investments made sense in any way, they would be proliferating everywhere without subsidies. But without subsidies they wouldn't exist. Even with subsidies, they mostly don't make sense.

The Province of Ontario is paying 80 cents/kwH to solar generators and then 'selling' it back to Ontarians for about 12 cents/kwH.

If you could produce solar power cheaper than coal, or a battery powered car that went further than a gas powered car for the same cost - then everyone would use them. It's not an 'argument' or a 'political issue' unless you factor carbon/climate change into the equation.

FYI: another way 'the left' hurts the world - by killing Nuclear Energy.

Imagine if Greenpeace had not existed. France built a bunch of identical reactors in the 1970's and has been trucking along safely - with 85% of their electricity provided cleanly and cheaply ever since.

Imagine if there were research on newer, cleaner, safer reactors.

The whole world might look different.

Two of the founders of Greenpeace are not 'pro nuclear'.

Obviously - it has some flaws, in particular profliferation of nuclear materials, but those issues can be addressed.

Anyhow - responsible nuclear energy could have easily far surpassed carbon fuel technology by now. Easily. CO2 emissions would be peaking as China and India switched over.

Because with current technologies (this might change in the future) it is far simpler to store combustibles than energy in other forms (electric, kinetic (in form of fly wheel)).

Specifically for cars it is much faster to fill the tank with combustibles (petrol, diesel, natural gas, LPG) than to recharge the accumulator. Also specifically for electric cars the accumulator has a limited number of charge cycles. Since the accumulator is a (relatively) very expensive part of an electric car this can easily reduce the value of a used electric car by a lot.

The storage of electric energy is IMHO indeed the fundamental problem solar and wind has: While we can get (law(s) of large numbers) good large scale estimates how much energy we can harvest, it is not always there at the time that wee need it. So we have to find a way to store large amounts of it to be able to apply the law(s) of large numbers. This is where the problem lies.

Of course we can hope for large breaktroughs that will solve these problems, but I'm talking about current technology.

This is completely wrong and conspiratorial.

There is absolutely nothing anyone can do to 'stop' the proliferation of solar or wind technology - there are 165 nations on planet earth - almost all of which could stand to benefit from if those were real options.

Do you really think that Egyptians, Jordanians and Lebanese enjoy living in poverty as their 'rich' Saudi and Libyan friends enjoy Oil, and don't put up solar panels because of 'American political pressure' or something?

The reality is wind and solar are cost prohibitive - and in almost every case make no sense at all.

In some very specific scenarios, they make sense.

As grids, batteries, supporting technology become better - they've improved - but we're still a long, long way off from where they are rationally viable at any real price range. In fact, there is no horizon today for that to happen - we're still waiting for a breakthrough.