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The absurdity of releasing Planet of the Humans in April 2020

May 11th, 2020 · 2 Comments

Regretfully, too many electrons have been burned delineating the multifaceted failings of the Jeff Gibbs written / edited / produced and Michael Moore promoted Planet of the Humans. This mockumentary (in this case, a mockery of a documentary), sadly, has topped more than 7 million YouTube clicks*. Amid the myriad of problems is the dated nature of much of the information, with one example falsely showing the supposed futility of electric vehicles since the demonstration PHEV (plug-in hybrid electric vehicle) Chevy Volt was being charged off an electric grid which derived 95 percent of its electricity from coal-fired generation.

While even a decade ago that didn’t represent the US grid which was, at that time, roughly 50 (not 95) percent coal, April 2020 was a particularly absurd moment when it came to this.

In April 2020 …

In the United States, for the first time essentially ever, renewable electricity sources (hydropower, wind, solar) contributed more electrons to the grid than did coal-fired plants.

In the United Kingdom, coal disappeared from the grid for an extended period. As of 10 May, 31 straight days where coal generating 0.00% of UK electrons.

In Planet of the Humans, amid his parroting fossil foolish talking points, Gibbs asserts that renewables can’t replace fossil fuels. Rather absurd to be releasing a mockumentary making this dated (and never truthful) assertion amid milestone moments making clear that it isn’t just possible for renewables to replace fossil fuels, but a milestone month making clear that this is happening … and at an accelerating pace.

As Ketan Joshi put it in the third of his posts about POTH,

The deceptions in the film build towards a single claim about renewables: they are technically incapable of decreasing emissions. They pile on top of existing output instead of cutting downwards, they encourage over-consumption and the fossil fuels required to build them are far greater than anything they could displace.

It’s all wrong. The past decade has proven that renewables can kill coal, and increasingly, gas too. 2019 was, in fact, the first year that low carbon sources out-generated coal …

And, again, April 2020 provided a milestone month making clear how the world has changed since Gibbs conceived the film and, seemingly, locked into stone every ‘fact’ even though the decade since has seen dramatic change in the clean-energy sector.

https://twitter.com/KetanJ0/status/1257588293287530497

* The YouTube count algorithm can end up actual “views” if the same person clicks in multiple times. On the other hand, as with “TV” versus viewers, it can’t catch if there are multiple people watching on the same screen. Thus ‘clicks’ used rather than ‘views’.

Tags: Energy

2 responses so far ↓

  • 1 John Egan // May 11, 2020 at 2:57 pm

    Adam – You seem either unable or unwilling to understand baseload power.

    Sigh, as if storage/load shifting/demand response isn’t part and parcel of the energy (power) discussion, planning, etc …

    As if “Duck Curve” isn’t something that industry/operators aren’t actively thinking about, working to deal with …

    As if renewables WITH storage aren’t coming in at lower costs for new electricity generation than fossil fuel options in open bid structures …

    As if …

    there can be a zillion GW solar / wind capacity, but on a windless mibus 20F night you are goind to need something else. Conversely, on a sunny, breezy 65F spring day there can be massive solar / wind production, but it will have zero value on electricity exchanges.

    You do know that, well before renewables played a significant role in the power system, that ‘baseload’ systems (nuclear, coal) were operating with nearly zero value in off-peak times. Adaptation in, for example, Florida had commercial ice-making going on in early hours to take advantage of nearly free nuclear electrons. Pumped hydro storage has been used, for decades, for arbitraging electricity between high/low demand periods. What you are pointing to isn’t, sigh, a ‘new thing’.

    Spreading grid connectivity/management enables operating with balancing production across regions.

    Also, storage for inter-day movement is being increasingly deployed (from distributed to grid) and there are multiple paths for intra-day and longer (even seasonal) storage options moving into more commercial demonstration.

    And, all this sort of stuff has appeared at times in my writing and certainly is well-discussed in the sorts of expert spaces I link to and reference in pieces.

    But, you know all of this but create strawmen in comments to specific posts to distort debate.

    I suspect the latter is what you trumpet whne you talk about how cheap renewables have become. What it actually means is that it is almost impossible for renewables to recover costs without massive subsidies.

    No … that ‘massive subsidies’ line is a falsehood in so many ways. “Massive” compared to subsidizing fossil fuels through ‘externalities’ no being priced? Absolutely not. “Impossible to recover costs” isn’t what is happening around the globe in energy markets. Etc …

    And, do you want to talk about fossil fuel direct and indirect subsidies? How the shale natural gas play has been a financial shell game for the past decade? About …

    Moore is perfectly right in asking the Chevy executive, “So where does the electricity come from?”

    Sure, exactly … and, every day that passes, that % is cleaner and less polluting. even when shot, that 95% coal was an abnormality in the US electrical grid and even more so today.

    By the way, do note that Gibbs (no, it wasn’t Moore … ) didn’t ask “when it drives on gasoline, where does that gasoline come from and how much does it pollute?”

  • 2 John Egan // May 12, 2020 at 11:22 am

    One word response to the above – –
    “Ivanpah”.

    Oh no, Ivanpah … surprised you didn’t throw out Solyndra … or …

    Want to cherry pick disasters/problems from any/all industries, they exist. Read up on all the failed names in the oil industry. How about coal bankruptcies? Lots of HUGE IT/computing names that don’t exist anymore. Or, well, where is Alleghany Airlines or Trump Shuttle or …?

    Oh, no, scary Ivanpah.

    Lots of strong/successful CSP projects around world … and orders of magnitude more PV.