Whoever injures with aid, perishes with aid

The reliability standard of the system, set by Ministerial Decree 10/28/2021 , is defined as LOLE <3:

that is, the network is considered reliable if the expected number of hours in which not all demand is satisfied remains less than three hours in a year.

The figure refers to the year 2028 and indicates that in all Italian regions there will be LOLE values ​​higher than 100, i.e. that in 2028 the network will be dangerously unreliable, with a high risk of blackouts . Warning: it is a scenario, and later I will tell you what the hypotheses are and who the author is. But first let me make a comment. We all remember the last serious blackout in Italy: Uga was exactly one month old ! Twenty-one years later our lives depend much more intensely on a stable supply of electricity, and this is because we have all become "digital". A number of functions of extreme practical importance, such as communicating, making payments, entering ( or leaving ) the house, using household appliances, etc., have been transferred from analogue to digital, which makes us enormously vulnerable to a power outage.

The figure above is taken from Terna's Italy Adequacy Report 2023 , released in December and widely commented on in the specialized press. I advise you to read the original, because the commentators, obviously, have grasped the messages that the blinders of the Zeitgeist allowed, or required, them to grasp. Thus, for example, for Energia Italia the report says (and in effect it says so) that the Italian electricity system "today appears to be 'adequate'" (today yes!), and then underlines the "need for stronger growth in renewables at a time when climate change presents important challenges to face." So: we need more renewables! For Energia Oltre the Italian electricity system is "adequate, but pay attention to extreme temperatures" (the culprit is therefore global warming , and in fact the report describes very well the problems that extreme temperatures create: poor availability of water, exceeding the thresholds temperatures permitted for the release of cooling water into nature, etc.). A slightly freer view is offered by the most authoritative magazine in the sector, Staffetta Quotidiana , according to which "Terna confirms risks from heat/drought and decommissioning of gas plants".

Well, here we get closer to the point. The "disposal of the economically unsustainable generation" mentioned in the caption of Figure 17 above…

Because in fact someone (typically my new friend Il Comico) might ask: "but why on earth, given that we are proceeding at full speed on the glorious path of renewables, given that the huge resources of the pienneerreerre finance the ecological transition, and that therefore in 2028 it is estimated that renewable power doubles to 71 Gw from the current 35 Gw and change, why on earth should we find ourselves in similar difficulties, with over 100 hours a year of electricity needs not covered by the installed renewable "vacuum power?"

In fact, the technical scenario to 2028 , represented in Figure 13, says that we will not find ourselves in difficulty:

and it gives us the image of a green world, with LOLE everywhere below the threshold. But then where does the catastrophic scenario in Figure 17 come from?

Jump out of this:

As FRNP (non-programmable renewable sources) increases, in theory the overall installed capacity increases, but in practice the programmable capacity, i.e. that from fossil sources, is put out of the market. Thermal power plants will have to be decommissioned because when they operate at reduced and intermittent speeds their operation becomes uneconomical, not allowing fixed costs to be covered. In the medium term (to 2028) it is estimated that around 15 Gw of thermoelectric capacity should go into decommissioning , which, considering that the CDP (probably available capacity) from renewables at the time will be around 10.6 Gw (Figure 8 of the report ), easily explains why the technical-economic scenario to 2028 tells us that LOLE will explode. Between closures already foreseen and foreseeable closures, the thermal capacity will drop from around 60 Gw to around 40 Gw, therefore we will decommission or have to decommission more thermal generation than we can install renewable generation, and good night to the musicians!

Of course every problem has a solution.

If you are a pro-European, the solution is obviously to aggravate the problem according to the well-known "we need more…" scheme: we need more renewables, or we need to have them available more quickly (congesting the markets and worsening costs), or something like gender (in fact the Fit for 55 obeys a similar logic)…

However, if the problem is economic, it is easy for the solution, in the minds of some, to spontaneously take the form of a subsidy.

The choice, thus, will no longer be between peace or air conditioners, but between subsidizing thermal generation or gasping for air from the heat.

And therefore we will subsidize the polluting thermal generation!

After all (and below I give you direct testimony) don't you believe that the USA has invested so much in gas to avoid selling it? And thank goodness! Having to choose between two imperialisms, to stay afloat it is better not to leave the old path for the yellow one…

I hope you appreciate the irony of the paradox: after having subsidized, mostly without your knowledge, renewables through the mechanism of system charges , once you reach the paradise of the naive, that entirely renewable world where in theory sun and wind free us from Bad and they deliver us to the Paradise of free energy, in practice you will continue to subsidize. Only this time, instead of "clean" renewable energy, you will have to subsidize thermal energy, which is indeed "dirty", but without whose stability and programmability the electricity grid would become dangerously inadequate. We will have to do it because the "we need more renewables", in the total absence of an overall reasoning on the management of the networks, will in the meantime have put an essential element for the stability of the networks themselves out of the market.

In short, we could conclude that while an investment generates a return, a subsidy generates another subsidy, perhaps of the opposite sign, because any distortion of economic rationality, and we have seen many here, is always a harbinger of imbalances and misfortune.

The rhetoric of the green , which used the weapon of the subsidy to assert itself, will be mangled by the same weapon, which can only be turned against it. Sad fate for the many "greens" who rage in the television parterres to be forced to finance the hated fossil in their bills!

The immediate credit for all this, obviously, goes to the brilliant von der Leyen, elected thanks to the Grillini votes, and destined to oblivion at a speed even faster than that of her mentor Merkel. A lame duck (or other bird) that will be kept on the grill for a while longer waiting for it to burn (the inevitable fate of early nominations, as those who deal with nominations well know).

But the problem is not limited to us, it does not depend only on the terrible quality of our leadership , it also has a broader dimension, and involves an old friend of ours, supranational governance . Look, for example, at the nasty letter Faith Birol, director of the International Energy Agency , received from two people passing by:

“Why are you doing propaganda instead of doing your job?” Energy and Commerce Committee Chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers asks him. We will be curious to see the answer, and I believe that in any case it is worth reading carefully the questions posed by this American parliamentarian (also because, as I announced above, they explain very well why lu grin has died , that is, why it is not in the things that we renounce the fossil ex abrupto : it is not for physical reasons, and it is not for geopolitical reasons).

We will talk about this and other things at the midterm , for which the program has been released .

(… well: when I asked you for some significant graphs to comment on, I was actually thinking more about stuff like this. But evidently I can't make myself understood anymore… )

(… a few weeks before the European elections a/symmetrie proposes, in Rome, a meeting on the various Eurodisasters, and the response, I must tell you, is lackluster. I think it's the first time that we haven't immediately sold out. Am I surprised? Maybe not. The precedent of 28 July 2021 was, in its own way, eloquent. When we asked for support, we hadn't had it, and if we hadn't had it, probably, it was because it wasn't there, and that we didn't if that were the case, we could have expected it, listening to more expert colleagues who warned us about how certain battles were "minority". In fact, the numbers and everyday evidence, at the time, showed an overwhelming majority of people who ran to do (only to regret it later) what a minority did not want to do. I won't go into the merits of the choices: my battle, shared with a few others that you know and many that you don't know, was to protect everyone's freedom, but it was, in clearly, a losing battle, because it was first and foremost a battle of reasonableness in a world of people possessed by a symmetrical and symmetrically irrational fear. In such symmetry, unfortunately, it was the numbers that were asymmetrical. The noble defense of the noble principle was therefore destined to collapse. Obviously you fight because you believe in it. If I were of the race of those who fight only to win I would never have opened this blog: ex post it brought me to Parliament, but ex ante it could only end my academic career! So the point is not so much, for me, whether the battle was "minority" or majority. My reflections were concentrated on other points. For example: how is it possible, I wondered, that ours, we insiders , and your perception of what was a decisive moment to demonstrate, to manifest, were so misaligned? Of course, you didn't see everything we saw, you couldn't grasp the cracking of certain certainties in the nuances of the internal debate, you couldn't see the cracks of doubt, and therefore you couldn't sense that this was the moment to creep in. Our information was asymmetrical. But the point was another: if you didn't answer our call it was because you obviously didn't trust us. I have no difficulty either understanding it or accepting it. I'm certainly not offended, also because by now you know that I don't trust you either: the first form of respect is reciprocity! After all, we are precisely discussing how much the facts prove me right… And then there is time, which is an important factor, not only in its specific dimension (it is sufficiently obvious that to highlight the importance of the European theme the the right moment is the European elections: if the signal isn't given it's probably because you don't want to give it, and that's fine), but also in its extensive dimension. Years pass and I imagine the tiredness increases. And here too there is reciprocity: I'm tired, I understand very well that you might be tired! Perhaps it could help us to resist the observation of the progress that has taken place. Their understanding, however, is clouded by many objective elements, including the duration of the journey itself, time. Given the objective, which is to free ourselves, some progress, such as the fact that people you thought would never have had access to it are now within the institutions, for those who did not experience that phase, but also for those he lived it, it may seem like a merely personal progress (the senator of the League wanted it in Portrona), not a political one (we are creating a ruling class with legislative and perhaps even executive experience). This, obviously, because if you don't know how institutions work (but we've done a lot to explain it to you) you can't appreciate the importance of having people with you who know how they work and who have a reputation within them. Yet, the results can be seen, or at least those who wanted to see them could easily do so. For example, between this and this:

1611 days, 38664 hours have passed, which were not easy for you as they were not for us, but which led to where we wanted it to go. Do you see the progress between these two positions or not? Do you understand or not that behind it there was a lot of patient work, a lot of prudence, but a lot of tenacity, not to lose sight of the objective, and to remind those responsible at the right time? Do you remember, or not, when everyone thought our best friend was President of the Republic ? Do you understand, or not, that that would have been a tombstone on our longing for freedom? Here lies a particular pitfall, which undermines the mechanism of representation at its root: the inability to reason in alternative scenarios, assisted by poor historical memory, which regularly leads to forgetting what the most probable ex ante scenario was, especially in those who he shouted the more to avert it. Difficult to please the noise professionals! The moment you ward off what they were screaming about, they inevitably forget what it was… On the other hand, has the danger been averted? Not yet. Goal achieved? Yes. Price? Very high, for you, I know. But our divisions were those deployed in Piazza del Popolo on 28 July 2021, not others, and with them we did what we could in this which is and remains a war of attrition. In a fight of this type our only hope, to influence internal and external relationships, was to wait for time to prove us right. And, I'm sorry to say, with all the compassion I felt for you, unfortunately in political terms if there were too few of you, or you revealed yourself – as you are doing – to be few, it wasn't the others' fault, it was yours! We had no other tactic left than that of attrition, the alternative being to become a meteor like any Pancho Pardi or Sara Cunial ! Maximum human respect, but the political battle is fought by not abandoning one's position. Of course, this required a lot of persistence, and in all these years, from 2011 to today, it is in your presence, in your closeness that I have found the strength and motivation to continue fighting, even in the darkest moments – which were not those of my parliamentary life. I thank you. Conversely, I imagine that you too have found strength and motivation in my presence, which you can no longer have, because if at the right moment you want to count on someone who knows how to behave and who to turn to, you have to give him time to be a man-machine , to enter the gears, possibly without being crushed by them, and the time required is a lot, a lot, and so little, very little is left for you. I suffer from not always being able to reciprocate, giving you back the motivation you gave me. The debate between us is fraying and deteriorating, as can be seen from the quality of the comments, which is directly proportional to the time I dedicate to it. But the time threshold necessary to activate a debate that is fruitful, that helps you to understand, that enriches me with your reports, is increasingly unattainable. At this precise moment I should be doing something else, unfortunately. I'll catch up tomorrow morning. But I cannot live more than one life, and perhaps this experience, which has given me so much and in which I have tried to give it my all, is also right that it should come, as it is inevitably and physiologically coming to an end. From this experience I emerge transformed in a way that I could never have suspected: due to the fact that I have confronted you for so long, that I have had to manage your fears and your anger, that I have shared in your joys, your pains, of your family events (your weddings, your baptisms,…), I emerge transformed into a social animal. But now the community that I am able to follow, to which I am able to dedicate myself, to which it is right for me to dedicate myself, because it is my institutional duty, with which I feel more in contact, and in a truer contact, are progressively not you, but are the my voters, my mayors, the young people of my party. People who often don't know who I am – there's even someone who watches less television than me, good God! – people with whom I have shared infinitely less than what I have shared here with you, but also people for whom I can do something, something concrete, in my new role, and do it in human times, and to whom, in the absence, often, of a common ideological vision, binds me to something less identifying but stronger: the common belonging to humanity. Perhaps, it's a hypothesis, in this phase of my life it satisfies me more to drink a glass of wine with a shepherd or a worker who knows nothing about me (he doesn't know who I am, what work I do, and if he knew he wouldn't know what does it consist of…) than exhausting myself to keep me united, to fuel a flame of hope in you, who instead, if you hear from me, know everything about me and the world, and come and explain it to me. You won't be offended, right, but if I'm more interested in what I don't know (for example, when and how potatoes are sown in the mountains) than what I already know and you relentlessly go back to teaching me (or even what I'm trying to explain to you and you resolutely do not want to understand)! I can't say for sure, but I have some doubts about whether whoever signed the Peace of Westphalia also declared the Thirty Years' War (the Swede certainly didn't, he was seven when it started!). Perhaps one consequence of long wars that is so obvious that it escapes notice is that those who declare them are unlikely to see the end. This too, which applies to you as well as to me, is a fact to take into consideration. In short, even for political energy there is a problem of programmability – or, if you like, intermittency – and costs! Of course, given such poor responses, I don't think it's any more ergonomic for me or of any benefit to you that I work so hard to come up with quality events, to carry on a cultural battle. The experiment that tempted me, because we have seen that it works, was to show a certain ruling class what interests "the people", and to show "the people" what the ruling class knows. In the autumn it was successful, I am sure that the road would be useful and fruitful, but if you don't want to take it I don't want to force you. To my friends, to those with whom I share the concern for our country trampled, no more and no less than ever, by physiologically hostile powers, I always say that we cannot blame ourselves for not having succeeded where Keynes had failed! "The economic consequences of Mr. Churchill" remain the best description of our situation, but they did not serve, precisely, to avoid the economic consequences of Mr. Churchill, just as they have not served, today, to open many minds. I therefore understand your disaffection and I do not ask you to force your nature. At least this much, at sixty-two years old, that is when I was forced, I understood: nature must be supported. On the other hand, however, if coming together as a community no longer interests you, if a/symmetries or this blog are no longer able to motivate and involve you, I can only conform to that principle of reality which I hope my political opponents will conform to! I will take note of it, and I will save myself a lot of unnecessary work. I wanted to write back to Ashoka Mody for Goofy13, but first I wanted to hear from the secretary of the Farnesina to find out the date of the G20 on development (which will be held in Pescara), etc. Behind every event there is work, and that work cannot be seen. I enjoyed organizing things for a while. But if there is no answer, I can do something else: start playing again, start reading again, go for a walk… I even have to organize the events you organize! No later than a couple of hours ago Claudio told me that he didn't know anything about one of our next meetings, perhaps because the one of you who had involved me saw me more as his secretary than as a speaker! This also happens, and many other things happen: we can even take a sabbatical. It also happens that it's late, and I go to sleep. This post, for the circular part, print it: it is the new "The bailouts that won't save us". We could call it "The clean energy that will pollute us". Keep it aside, because there won't be many left. I will work to ensure that the midterms have the same quality as always, and then I will move on to something else, as you are doing… )