One of the first hard lessons I learned in early adulthood was to avoid renting an all-electric apartment. I did that once, not realizing what I was getting into, only to find the VEPCO bill was more than I could afford. I tried juggling VEPCO payments with the rent, but quickly fell behind in both. Nightmares ensued.
I think the same will happen as politicians push forward with their dream of an all-electric society. Electricity is inherently expensive because it is derived, with loses, from other forms of energy. It is also as fussy as a gold digging bride.
Tidewater News and Opinion Forum 
And the massive battery backups that would be necessary to make unreliable green energy practical would require so many scarce resources that we’d have to strip mine many of the most sensitive places on Earth to get them.
But CO2….
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I found this particular “fun fact” in the article particularly striking: “One wind turbine blade can require as much as 5,300 cubic feet of balsa wood.”
It has taken billions of balsa trees to build wind turbines, so in addition to no way to store the electricity wind turbines generate, the manufacture of wind turbines has also destroyed carbon storage in the balsa forests.
Alternatives to balsa are emerging, but TANSTAAFL.
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You should maybe broaden your thinking beyond “battery backups” and move to Advanced Energy Storage Systems. At the scale needed by utilities there are a variety of technologies and companies rushing to meet this need. This survey was prepared for investors but touches on various emerging solutions. . .
https://www.precedenceresearch.com/advanced-energy-storage-systems-market
Have a little faith in the market!
And then there is this approach taping into the most basic force in the universe. . .
https://tinyurl.com/2p8s3j3t
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Here is some free advice – Don’t piss into the wind.
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You have outdone yourself with this one. It is an amazing amalgamation of bullshit from top to bottom. The sub-heading is a good example of the quality of the analysis . . .
“Green energy leads to sex trafficking”
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Good of you to bring that up.
The article says, “In Latin America, green energy has destroyed forests, spread drugs and also led to the kidnapping and sex trafficking of young girls. Logging mining camps, especially illegal ones, depend on a steady supply of male workers. The abduction and rape of underage girls has been traced back to the system feeding balsa wood to the wind turbines of China and Europe.”
If you’d like to dispute this reporting, be sure to show us your homework.
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What reporting?
You call that “reporting?”
Of course you do.
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Where is your homework?
You call that “homework”?
Of course you do.
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US oil industry increases sex trafficking in the Dakotas.
https://www.cnbc.com/2015/03/12/dark-side-of-nd-oil-boom-sex-trafficking.html
Balsa is sustainable, oil is not. And most of the balsa comes from plantations already working in Ecuador.
The Amazon Basin is in more trouble from Bolsonaro and his encouragement of legal and illegal clearcutting for farms and cattle ranches.
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RE: “Balsa is sustainable, oil is not.”
Think about that for a moment. If you want to burn oil, you need the balsa forests to remove carbon from the atmosphere. But if you cut down the balsa forests to avoid burning oil, you disrupt the natural carbon cycle on which life depends. At best, one approach leads toward equilibrium, the other toward oxygen depletion.
RE: “And most of the balsa comes from plantations already working in Ecuador.”
Is that a fact? A link in the article suggests otherwise (may need to register for free access):
https://www.economist.com/the-americas/2021/01/30/the-wind-power-boom-set-off-a-scramble-for-balsa-wood-in-ecuador
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“Think about that for a moment. ”
Maybe you should? If balsa is harvested it regrows very quickly. It is the growth phase where carbon is removed from the air. The harvested wood can be thought of a sequestration of carbon safely tucked into the structure of wind turbine blades.
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RE: “If balsa is harvested it regrows very quickly.”
Balsa can be regrown quickly under agricultural conditions. Industrial scale harvesting in natural forests does not necessarily lead to harvest replacement.
RE: “The harvested wood can be thought of a sequestration of carbon safely tucked into the structure of wind turbine blades.”
So what? Do you really mean to suggest that the sequestration of carbon in balsa wind turbine blade cores is equivalent to the volume of CO2 conversion to oxygen in living trees containing the same amount of balsa wood?
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Balsa is a sustainable harvest meaning you keep replanting and growing it. Union Camp, a long client of mine from the 70’s until they were taken over by International Paper, grew hardwood for paper making. The “farms” were in various stages from seedlings to mature sycamores in about 21 years. Bare forests were only temporary and for only a percentage of the land areas.
Sex trafficking was not part of the operation either.
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RE: “Balsa is a sustainable harvest meaning you keep replanting and growing it.”
Did you read the Economist link? Rain forest destruction caused by balsa harvesting in Ecuador did not occur on plantations with replanting programs.
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Maybe not now, but if the demand for balsa rises, which is not certain since there are other methods of making blades, there will be. Tragedy of the Commons dictates a resolution for those who wish to profit.
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Paywalled. The little I could read was indicating a rush to profit on a new demand. If the need continues, farming will soon come.
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