Ross Meurant: Providers or Power

Last week I penned a piece on hydrogen being promoted at the G7 as an alternative energy source for Europe. My conclusion was: Europe would do itself as massive favour if it accelerated the supply of Russian gas via the North Stream.

In this article I clinically debunk the myth that power generators: solar, wind and batteries, are the solution to protect the environment. In fact, I demonstrate that these, “Green Machines” will cause massively greater environmental damage than is the unfortunate by-product of the mainstream providers of power.

Some basic physics: there are limits on the natural sources which cannot be exceeded.

Best conversion rate of sun photons to electrons is 33%. We achieve 26%

Best wind conversion is 60%. We achieve 45%.

Therefore, we are close to the maximum capture of energy from these sources – providing the sun shines and the wind blows.

The solution some say is batteries.

Taking Tesla’s battery factory in Nevada – the world’s biggest; it would take 500 years for that factory to make enough batteries to satisfy the energy consumption of one day in the USA.

Mark Mills: What's Wrong with Wind and Solar?

Have you ever heard of "unobtanium"?

It's the magical energy mineral found on the planet Pandora in the movie, Avatar. It's a fantasy in a science fiction script. But environmentalists think they've found it here on earth in the form of wind and solar power.

They think all the energy we need can be supplied by building enough wind and solar farms; and enough batteries.

The simple truth is that we can't. Nor should we want to—not if our goal is to be good stewards of the planet.