By Vijay Jayaraj
You wake up with an alarm, fasten them on the light, brew coffee and drive to work. Each step requires energy – the stuff that shares the coin of physical reality with matter, the E in E = MC2. It keeps the houses warm, food fresh and economically.
With 80% of primary energy, coal, oil and natural gas worldwide make up for modern civilization. Nevertheless, they continue to be asked to give up these fuels without a feasible, scalable replacement being within sight.
For “green” lobbyists, it is dishonest to say that electricity from wind and solar can replace fossil fuels if most of the energy used in the world does not even exist in the form of electricity.
Electricity corresponds only to about 20% of the global final energy consumption. This means that four fifths of the world's energy consumption come from fuels that put ships, aircraft, trucks and industrial stoves in force. Oil ferrisons Vehicles, natural gas provide heat for houses and industry, and coal is of crucial importance for the production of steel made of iron.
The need for hydrocarbons are expected to exceed electricity for many decades.
You have probably heard it before: “Solar and wind are now cheaper than fossil fuels.” This is a falsehood supported by a misleading metric – the level electricity costs (LCOE). When Mark Twain spoke of “lies, damn lies and statistics”, he had LCOE in mind.
LCOE pretends to present a comparison between apples to apples between different energy sources. However, the measure is meaningless because it ignores key costs, e.g. B. the provision of security performance to compensate for the intermittenz of solar and wind. Something has to be available to increase if the wind and the sun are not available for electricity generation.
While it may be true that sunshine and wind are “free”, it converts them into an energy form that works with modern power grids and integrates them into the 24-hour operation of electrical systems that delivers millions of customers, difficult and expensive.
A 2022 study by Robert Idel reveals LCOES errors.
First, LCOe takes on a constant outcome, but solar and wind produce only 20% -30% of their designed capacity compared to 80% -90% for plants that run with coal, natural gas or nuclear fuel.
This comment was first published on July 7, 2025 by RealClearets.
Vijay Jayaraj is a science and research assistant in the CO₂ CO₂ coalition, Fairfax, Virginia. He has an MS in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia and a postgraduate degree in energy management at Robert Gordon University in Great Britain and a Bachelor engineering at Anna University, India.
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