Does a High Penetration of Solar and Wind Energy Cause — Or Prevent — Grid Instability?
Given that solar and wind are intermittent, our usual notion of these most common forms of renewable energy is that they create grid instability – perhaps even blackouts – stemming from unpredictable clouds covering the sun or changing patterns in the winds in a given region. But according to the Fraunhofer Institute for Wind Energy and Energy System Technology (IWES) in Kassel, Germany, these fears may be unfounded; when better understood, a high penetration of solar and wind may actually prevent power outages.
I think what this information helps to demonstrate is that the average American all too often simply lacks the data and education necessary to make a firmly justified determinations on the best courses of action in arenas like this.
On the other hand, history has clearly demonstrated, in every country and every age, that the profit motive confers little weight to the public interest, and so cannot ever be trusted to operate in that interest. A long list of examples in recent decades would include the cold reluctance of car makers to install seat belts, safety glass and soft dashes, and the fevered fervor of pharmaceutical companies’ to release treatments of marginal efficacy and to charge extortive prices. It would require a stunning measure of naiveté to expect otherwise.
Decision making in vital and complex areas of the public interest like these therefore must and ought to be consigned to that sole great entity that is specifically intended to plan and implement strategies for achieving and defending the common good. That is the very entity by which we all get together to do great things for each other and for our progeny (things that the private sector can’t or won’t), and protect those great elements of the public commons that private interests will otherwise hungrily usurp and destroy.
I’m talking, of course, about government – specifically the Federal government, because a national comprehensive strategy is obviously needed here. The crucial challenge is the degree to which we have allowed our moneyed interest to transform our “public servants” into slavish creatures of graft.
Once again, as ever, it gets back to the bribery. If we can’t stop it, we resign our well-being (and that of our children) to the pitiless malice of ravenous paper tigers.