Scientists are engaged in an increasingly bitter and personal feud over how much power the United States can get from renewable sources, with a large group of researchers taking aim at a popular recent paper that claimed the country could move beyond fossil fuels entirely by 2055.

In 2015, Stanford professor Mark Jacobson and his colleagues argued that between 2050 and 2055, the United States could be entirely powered by “clean” energy sources and “no natural gas, biofuels, nuclear power, or stationary batteries are needed.”

That would be a massive shift from the current power makeup, as in 2016, the United States got only 6.5 percent of its electricity from hydropower, 5.6 percent from wind and 0.9 percent from solar. Nonetheless, the paper excited proponents of renewable energy, and has been embraced by Sen. Bernie Sanders, celebrity backers such actor Mark Ruffalo and many environmental groups.



But Jacobson’s idea was always contentious. And now, no fewer than 21 researchers have published a study in the influential Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (which also published Jacobson’s original study in 2015) arguing that the work “used invalid modeling tools, contained modeling errors, and made implausible and inadequately supported assumptions.”
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In a simultaneous letter in the journal, meanwhile, Jacobson and three Stanford colleagues fire back that Clack’s critique is itself “riddled with errors” and “demonstrably false.”

Jacobson also argued that his critics are biased in favor of carbon-based fuels such as oil, gas and coal, as well as nuclear energy.

The fight between researchers comes as the Trump administration has signaled it does not believe the nation’s electric grid can support a quick and thorough shift toward renewable energy, as Jacobson suggests that it can. As soon as this week, Energy Secretary Rick Perry is expected to release a study of the grid that renewable energy advocates fear will be used to criticize wind and solar and how they affect the grid.

3. To Clack’s claim that we made modeling errors, this is absolutely false, as indicated in each specific published response. Most notably, Clack claims that we erred because our peak instantaneous hydropower load discharge rate exceeded our maximum possible annual-average discharge rate. But Clack is wrong because averages mathematically include values higher and lower than the average. Clack made other similar mathematical errors.

More importantly, it was made clear to Clack by email on Feb. 29, 2016, that turbines were assumed added to existing hydropower reservoirs to increase their peak instantaneous discharge rate without increasing their annual energy consumption or the number of dams, a solution not previously considered. It was also made clear that it was alternatively possible to increase the discharge rate of CSP, or concentrating solar power, rather than hydropower. Increasing hydropower’s peak instantaneous discharge rate was not a “modeling mistake” but an assumption.

Despite having full knowledge in writing, not only in 2016 but also weeks prior to the publication of their article, that this was an assumption, Clack and coauthors made the intentionally false claim in their paper that it was an error. The fact that Clack (twice) and all his coauthors (once) were informed in writing about a factual assumption, but intentionally mischaracterized it as a mistake, then further falsely pretended the numbers resulted in mathematical errors when they knew there were none, speaks to the integrity and motivation of the Clack et al. authors.

Consider Clack’s coauthor Ken Caldeira, a climate scientist at the Carnegie Institution for Science. Caldeira’s press release broadcasting their critique argues that removing carbon dioxide from the U.S. power supply is a massive job demanding the biggest tool box possible: “When you call a plumber to fix a leak, you want her to arrive with a full toolbox and not leave most of her tools at home,” says Caldeira.

The same document then abandons this technology-agnostic tone to call out nuclear energy and carbon capture as technologies that “solving the climate problem will depend on.” And Caldeira has appealed for deploying a new generation of nuclear reactors which he and other nuclear boosters such as former NASA scientist Jim Hansen say are needed because renewables “cannot scale up fast enough.”

They could be right. Then again, expert sources they cite, such as the International Energy Agency, have consistently underestimated renewable energy growth. And identical scale-up critiques have also been well argued against nuclear energy and carbon capture and storage (CCS).

Jacobson makes some powerful arguments for walking away from those technologies in his PNAS papers. Nuclear liabilities cited by Jacobson include the threat of future Fukushima-like disasters, nuclear weapons proliferation facilitated by large-scale uranium enrichment, and the financial risks such as those that recently bankrupted Westinghouse. And, as he notes in his rebuttal, the International Panel on Climate Change has determined there is “robust evidence” and “high agreement” among experts validating these nuclear risks.

Jacobson’s rejection of CCS technology, meanwhile, may provide deeper insight on what makes him a magnet for academic attacks.

The main thing that soured Jacobson on CCS was his own pioneering work on the climate change impacts of black carbon, or soot. Fossil fuel plants that capture most of their CO2 still release soot that’s both a public health menace and an agent of climate change. In a 2001 paper in Nature on simulations of soot particles in the atmosphere, he controversially argued that soot in the air and on blackened snow and ice fields absorbs enough heat to make its climate impact second only to CO2. Sixteen years on, that view now enjoys strong support from the science community.

In April, U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry announced a 60-day study on electricity market design and grid reliability, meant to assess to what extent current market designs fail to adequately compensate “baseload” (i.e., coal- and nuclear-fired) power plants.

The memo commissioning the study presents as “fact” a curious claim: “baseload power is necessary to a well-functioning electric grid.” This notion has been thoroughly disproven by a diverse community of utilities, system operators, economists, and other experts that moved on from this topic years ago. To these practitioners, this premise seems as backward as if President Eisenhower, instead of launching the interstate highway system, had called for restudy of the virtues of horse-drawn carriages.

Today, the grid needs flexibility from diverse resources, not baseload power plants. Leveraging market forces to help us decide between options offers the best chance of avoiding the multitrillion-dollar mistake—and gigatons of carbon emissions—of blindly reinvesting in the past century’s technologies.

Modern Grids Don’t Need BaseloadUtilities in the U.S. have had at least a decade of comfortable experience operating grids with a declining share of baseload power relative to low-cost renewable energy. Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, both reliability and renewable energy adoption levels are higher than in the U.S.; notably, the lights failed to go out in England when the UK grid recently ran for a full day without any coal power for the first time since 1882, foreshadowing its planned phaseout by 2025.

Craig Morris @PPchef

Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn made an unreported trip to the Middle East in 2015 to work on a U.S.-Russian venture in Saudi Arabia before he joined the Trump campaign, possibly having multiple contacts with Saudi officials that he failed to disclose when seeking renewal of his security clearances, according to Democrats who are seeking detailed records of Flynn’s travels.

“Most troubling of all, we have no record of Gen. Flynn identifying on his security clearance renewal application – or during his interview with security clearance investigators – even a single foreign government he had contact with,” wrote Reps. Elijah Cummings and Eliot Engel, the ranking members of the House Oversight and Foreign Affairs committees, in a letter published on Monday.

The Democrats have demanded documents related to all of Flynn’s work on the Saudi nuclear venture, which involved not only a Russian-U.S. effort to construct the nuclear reactors but also a plan to have Arab countries repay the Russians with the purchase of “Russian military hardware,” the letter says, citing internal documents from companies involved in trying to solidify the deal.

The Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE) estimates the cost of Georgia Power’s Vogtle nuclear project will rise by $9 billion to $29 billion by the time it is completed, according to Reuters.SACE, a clean energy group opposed to the nuclear project, says its estimate is based on a report made by utility consultants to the Georgia Public Service Commission.The report uses a scenario in which the Vogtle project is further delayed by the bankruptcy of Westinghouse Electric, the project’s contractor, and comes online in 2022, three years behind schedule.Westinghouse’s bankruptcy has complicated and imperiled Georgia Power’s Vogtle project. The nuclear plant expansion was already behind schedule and over budget when Westinghouse filed for bankruptcy court protection in March, setting off months of protracted negotiations over how to finish the plant.

Southern Co., Georgia Power’s corporate parent, earlier this month reached an agreement with Westinghouse to complete the project that includes payment of a $3.68 billion guarantee by Toshiba, Westinghouse’s parent company, to Southern.

But the project still faces major hurdles. A report filed by two ratepayer advocate consultants to the Georgia Public Service Commission found that completing the project is not economic and recommended that it abandoned.