From Dr. Benny Peiser at The GWPF
Network Agency Calls For Suspension Of Emission Laws For Old Coal Plants
Last winter, on several occasions, Germany escaped only just large-scale power outages. Next winter the risk of large blackouts is even greater. The culprit for the looming crisis is the single most important instrument of German energy policy: the “Renewable Energy Law.” The economic cost of a wide-scale blackout are measured in billions of Euros per day. The most important test of energy policy is now the stability of power – so far only the cost of the green energy transition has been focused upon. Because the federal government does not have the guts to start an overdue and fundamental debate about the usefulness of a 12-year-old, now totally outdated, “launch aid” called EEG, it now threatens to over-steer, with the green energy transition ending up in a crash. Fasten your seat belts. –Daniel Wetzel, Die Welt, 10 May 2012
Old coal power plants need to stay in operation or Germany’s power grid faces collapse. That is the warning of Germany’s national grid agency. Because the danger of blackouts is growing as a result of the shut-down of six nuclear power plants last year, the Federal Network Agency is proposing to suspend legal emission limits for plants. Old power stations, which are due to be shut down due to their high environmental impact, should continue to operate. “Closures of more conventional power plants are currently not feasible in Germany,” it says literally in the grid agency’s report: “Given the present and future tense situation, it is necessary to suspend closures due to the emissions reduction law.” –D. Wetzel und D. Siems, Die Welt, 10 May 2012
The German Bundesnetzagentur (Federal Network Agency) issued a press release warning that the national power grid is in serious trouble and that something needs to be done urgently. Germany’s once impeccably stable world-class power grid has been transformed and is today just one step away from being a developing-world laughing stock. This has all been accomplished in just a few short years – thanks to the country’s reckless and uncontrolled rush to renewable energies, wind and sun, all spurred on by a blind environmental movement and hysteria with respect to nuclear power. –P Gosslin, NoTricksZone, 11 May 2012
Winfried Kretschmann (Green Party), the prime minister of the state of Baden Wuerttemberg, is urging Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) to encourage the construction of new gas-fired power plants. Especially in southern Germany energy security is at risk, according to Kretschmann. –Nikolai Fichtner,Financial Times Deutschland, 3 May 2012,
Global-warming-related catastrophes are increasingly hitting vulnerable populations around the world, with one species in particular danger: the electricity ratepayer. Denmark, an early adopter of the global-warming mania, now requires its households to pay the developed world’s highest power prices — about 40¢ a kilowatt hour, or three to four times what North Americans pay today. Germany, whose powerhouse economy gave green developers a blank cheque, is a close second, followed by other politically correct nations such as Belgium, the headquarters of the EU, and distressed nations such as Spain. The result is chaos to the economic well-being of the EU nations. Even in rock-solid Germany, up to 15% of the populace is now believed to be in “fuel poverty.” Some 600,000 low-income Germans are now being cut off by their power companies annually, a number expected to increase as a never-ending stream of global-warming projects in the pipeline wallops customers. In the U.K., which has laboured under the most politically correct climate leadership in the world, some 12 million people are already in fuel poverty, 900,000 of them in wind-infested Scotland alone, and the U.K. has now entered a double-dip recession. –Lawrence Solomon, Financial Post, 12 May 2012
Gee, what a surprise. And now the EU is looking askance at the Rio seance. When will full-scale revolt take place?
It is often said: “As ye sow, so shall ye reap.”
In Germany’s case, this was entirely predictable: the goofier and more grandiose the renewable energy projects, the more expensive and unreliable the result.
The UK is committed to a policy of rapid expansion of expensive electricity from renewables, which will inevitably lead to rolling brown outs and black outs. However, this is still 5-6 years away, Germany was just quicker off the mark in embracing insane and unsustainable energy policies.
Yeh, I recently did a post on Fritz Vahrenholt, a recent converted heretic from Germany. He touches on some of the problems with renewables. It isn’t just the cost. Nor is it simply the amount of the source of energy. Their solar panels wreak havoc on a grid system. This is something many people don’t readily understand. Grids have a specific design depending not only on how much is coming on the grid, but also where.
A properly maintained grid to ensure quality of service must have strategically placed equipment on the grid such as capacitors, regulators, and re-closures (switches) and the like. Wire size is a huge consideration. When you have an indeterminable amount of energy coming onto the grid from indeterminable places, your grid is at a horrible risk. Add this variable influx of the solar to the wind and you’ve got a very unstable grid.
It does make one laugh a bit. The Über successful renewable industry in Germany has mandated that of the future power plant construction in Germany over 70% will be from traditional energy generation sources.
Something really, really bad is going to have to happen first. The Warmists are blind to the disaster they are building toward. Let’s pray that when it happens it doesn’t take the global economy down with it. Thing is, when an energy infrastructure is allowed to downgrade to this point, reversing course when it happens could take some time — which there may not be a lot of.
“Screwed, blued and tattooed”. The EU, Japan and soon, the US will have to pay the price for the drunken stupor which is the “green energy movement”.
So sad, most people are too gullible, or busy and are led to the disaster of the greens like sheep to slaughter. Utopia sounds so good I guess they cannot help themselves. Not many think for themselves anymore.
With Obama, Lisa Jackson and the EPA in control of things over here in the US, we are going down that same road right behind Germany. Coal plants are being taken offline here in the US at a rapid rate in the name of CAGW and supposed mercury pollution. Expect energy poverty and massive increases in electricity prices here as well if they get four more years. In addition, Dr. Chu , the secretary of energy thinks we need to be paying $8+ per gallon of gas. You don’t have to be a climate scientist to realize what effect that is going to have on our economy, the poor and the middle class.
The CAGW movement will ultimately fail, not because the facts regarding the science prevail, but because of issues like this. A healthy economy can afford stupidity now for some phantom benefit promised a century later. A sick economy results in a larger proportion of the population whose only concern is having enough food to eat, shelter, and not freezing to death. Those are the things that cause the populace to dig in their heels and say “enough!”
Sad that we have to be pushed to the brink to recognize that there is a bring and back away from it.
No solution, no matter how environmentally friendly is “sustainable” if the people paying the bills cannot afford to make the payments.
An earthquake happens in Japan. All the nuke plants shut down in Germany. Now they need to buy more gas from Russia.
Huh?
I’m so glad with france’s nuclear 8 cents/kwh for consumer. Now hope that moron Hollande doesn’t do a greenwipe on our nukes.
“The Warmists are blind to the disaster they are building toward.”
You’re being unfair to warmists, they WANT disaster.
Maurice Strong, U.N. environmental leader and IPCC creator: “Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?”
The so-called “Green Energy Industry” is somewhat like the big charities in America. A strong, inverse relationship exists betwen the annnual salary and perks of the nonprofit CEO and its percentage of funds that actually go to charity. The greater the political power of the radical, leftist green energy activists the less likely their emotion-based green energy scheems are likely to work. And, the greater political power of the radical, leftists greens, the less science-based are their taxpayer funded schemes and crazy dreams.
In simple terms: Big salary for non-profit charity CEO —> Low percentage of funds to poor.
And likewise: Big political influence of radical, leftist, greenies —> Low percentage chance or green schemes working.
The solution is to get rid of non-profits with paid staff and get the donations to the poor. And, to ignore the screaming of the radical, leftist greenies and go ahead with science-based energy policies.
James Sexton says:
May 12, 2012 at 8:58 am
This is something many people don’t readily understand. Grids have a specific design depending not only on how much is coming on the grid, but also where.
=========
Here in BC the local power company (BC Hydro) makes hundreds of millions of dollars a year as a result of the problems the US has in turning power on and off on the grid.
When the wind and solar energy down south in the US crank ups, they have surplus generating capacity. They can’t simply shut down the conventional power plants. So to avoid burning out all the electrical equipment in the western United States, they need someone to take their surplus.
Depending on how much surplus there is, this drives down the prices for wholesale electricity, to the point where it goes very low – even to zero – or even negative!! Yes, when there is excess capacity in the grid, the power companies will pay money for someone to take the power.
At this point BC Hydro buys US power and stores this in the hydro dams in BC. This is possible because the hydro power can be ramped up an down quite quickly as compared to conventional plants.
Then when the wind and sun stop, the prices of wholesale electricity on the grid shoot up, as power stations struggle to meed the demand. Now they face the opposite problem, burning out equipment as a result of brownouts and blackouts. At this point the power companies will pay almost anything for power, to avoid the cost of damage.
At this point BC Hydro turns the hydro dams back on, selling the power back to the US at high prices. The same power they bought earlier from the US at low prices.
So, while it may look like solar and wind are generating power, in fact they are not because of the fluctuations they cause in the grid. This changes the spot price of electricity such that the solar and wind power is actually costing money to produce, by driving the spot prices up an down.
When Germany freezes in the dark the media will ignore both them and the weather killing them, and their dead will be as unmourned as all previous victims of the AGW hoax. How many headlines did you see about last winter’s deadly Eastern European freezes, as compared to the Russian heat wave? When people die after their Green-induced power cut-off, does the death certificate list the cause as ‘Climate Fraud’?
ferd berple says:
May 12, 2012 at 10:01 am
James Sexton says:
May 12, 2012 at 8:58 am
This is something many people don’t readily understand. Grids have a specific design depending not only on how much is coming on the grid, but also where.
=========
Here in BC the local power company (BC Hydro) makes hundreds of millions of dollars a year as a result of the problems the US has in turning power on and off on the grid.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lol, yeh, similar acts of stupidity are occurring in the east as well. I recently had a conversation with a employee of a New Brunswick energy company. Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) has played a big part in that insanity. It’s like the U.S. is exporting capital to Canada. You’re welcome. What are friends for? I think in the U.S. an incremental lobotomy is required for energy decision makers, increasing the amount of grey matter excised as one moves closer to the coasts and northward.
This is very good news. It will learn them.
As bad as things are in Germany, California may actually experience large area brownouts and rolling blackouts first. One of their big nuclear plants is shut down right now and they have taken too many conventional plants offline in the last decade or so. When the heat of the summer kicks in, the demand for cooling, especially from all those internet server farms, may strain the regional grid to the breaking point. The big question there, as in Germany, is whether the people will realize who is really to blame and change their voting choices accordingly. Even then it will take years, maybe decades to reverse the damage. And in the meantime the rolling blackouts will continue and business will flee the area for places with a more stable electrical grid.
Let their electric power fail. Let it be a monument to their own stupidity.
James Sexton says:
May 12, 2012 at 10:27 am
ferd berple says:
May 12, 2012 at 10:01 am
James Sexton says:
May 12, 2012 at 8:58 am
This is something many people don’t readily understand. Grids have a specific design depending not only on how much is coming on the grid, but also where.
=========
Here in BC the local power company (BC Hydro) makes hundreds of millions of dollars a year as a result of the problems the US has in turning power on and off on the grid.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lol, yeh, similar acts of stupidity are occurring in the east as well. I recently had a conversation with a employee of a New Brunswick energy company. Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) has played a big part in that insanity. It’s like the U.S. is exporting capital to Canada. You’re welcome. What are friends for? I think in the U.S. an incremental lobotomy is required for energy decision makers, increasing the amount of grey matter excised as one moves closer to the coasts and northward.
———————————————————————————————————————————-
Here in Ontario (California with snow) we are the ones paying others to take our power because of the Green Energy Act. Ontario consumers pay ever increasing rates and Michigan, Ohio, New York etc get paid to take our power and then charge us twice to take it back. Aren’t windmills grand?
I should also add that the Beck generating station in Niagra falls is frequently dumping water that would other wise be used to generate $0.02 electricity in order to accommodate the ups and downs of wind and solar. OT but if it wasn’t for the Beck station and its isolated original 25 cycle generators Ontario wouldn’t have been as quick to recover from the blackout a few years back. Power from Beck was used to restart the Bruce nukes.
WTF says:
May 12, 2012 at 11:22 am
Here in Ontario (California with snow) we are the ones paying others to take our power because of the Green Energy Act. Ontario consumers pay ever increasing rates and Michigan, Ohio, New York etc get paid to take our power and then charge us twice to take it back. Aren’t windmills grand?
=================================================
It is the leftists vision of efficiency. While worthy of ridicule, it would be downright hilarious if not for the damage those idiots inflict on the rest of us.
One of my favorite quotations:
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/newsarticle.aspx?id=28907
Putin suggests Germans replace nuclear with firewood
01 December 2010
Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin has told German businessmen that they may have to rely on Russian firewood for heating if they do not want to construct new nuclear power plants or bring in Russian gas supplies. At a business conference organized in Berlin by the German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Putin recognised that “the German public does not like the nuclear power industry for some reason.” He continued: “But I cannot understand what fuel you will take for heating. You do not want gas, you do not develop the nuclear power industry, so you will heat with firewood?” Putin then noted, “You will have to go to Siberia to buy the firewood there,” as Europeans “do not even have firewood.”
Over recent decades the IPCC, Mssrs Gore and Hansen, and their various minions and acolytes have regaled the world with a continuous litany of projections of the endless death and misery which will befall humanity as a result of CAGW. In this one respect I have always had to agree with them. Of course, the burgeoning misery and death that humanity has, is, and will suffer as a result of CAGW has almost nothing to do with anything that is occurring with the climate but is due almost entirely to the ill considered and ultimately futile schemes which have been, are being, and are proposed to be enacted as supposed solutions to a looming “crisis” which growing evidence suggests is not only not likely to be a catastrophe, but in the larger scheme is not very certain to even be a problem.
Biofuels have fostered starvation and habitat destruction. Wind and Solar have wrecked their well enumerated havoc while sapping massive capital away from more productive uses producing, for the effort applied, minimal and unreliable energy at exorbitant costs leading to energy poverty and, as noted above, entire well developed economies brought to within inches of complete collapse. All while destroying more wildlife every day or two than Deep Horizon did from start to finish.
Envirofascist bureaucrats are multiplying faster than rabbits. Demanding, and in most cases acquiring, ever growing powers to control every single aspect of every single human life on the planet and non human life as well, although they have thoughtfully elected to exempt themselves and all their “consensus” mates from such petty considerations.
There are many other ways that CO2 demonization has and is negatively affecting the human prospect, but I think the point has been made. While whatever warming we have experienced to this point has been minimal and mostly beneficial, (would anyone suggest that if we could return the GAT to 18th or 19th century levels it would be an improvement to do so?) the human misery and death already wrought in an entirely futile effort to try to influence the future climate in all probability already exceeds the worst that the climate could do,no matter where it ultimately lands at the end of the millenium.
My Real Science comment below was on cap & trade, but it applies here, as the “Renewable Energy Law” is akin to and walks hand in hand with insane cap & trade schemes:
Civilization’s Wrecking Ball
The radical cap & trade bill that passed the U.S. House in the early summer of 2009 dictated that there would be mandatory 83% CO2 cuts by 2050 — back to 1867 per capita use levels, back to when all we had was a few trains sputtering around, no cars, no planes, lights, vacuums, refridgerators, air conditioners, electric stoves, computers, TVs. No power stations… at all.
This would have taken a wrecking ball to civilization. No joke. The notion that appliances and engines would gain tenfold in efficiency is pure poppycock. Cap & trade would have started to immediately cut into our industrial base, causing widespread shut downs of industrial facilities of every stripe. Energy prices would skyrocket, and that is putting it lightly. Availability of products, of nearly every kind, would be severely retarded. Scores of millions would suffer unemployment or underemployment as the economy cratered. But this is exactly what the fear-mongering Chicken Littles desire. It is the leftist dream. Some quotes:
“A massive campaign must be launched to de-develop the United States… ” –John Holdren (1973), Obama’s Science Czar
“Isn’t the only hope for this planet the total collapse of industrial civilisation? Is it not our responsibility to ensure that this collapse happens? ” –Maurice Strong, ex UNEP Director
“My [goal is to] destroy the industrial infrastructure and see wilderness… returning throughout the world.” –David Foreman, co-founder of Earth First!
“We have wished, we ecofreaks, for a disaster… to bomb us into the stone age, where we might live like Indians… with our localism… our gardens, our homemade religion.” — Stewart Brand, Whole Earth Catalogue
Think that this desire to return to stone age is not alive and well? Look what’s happening right now in Tombstone AZ. See the Fox report at the link with John Stossel reporting! In Tombstone, pipes for their water supply were destroyed in a fire and subsequent mudslides. Obama’s “wilderness officials,” despite the fact that nearly zero animals are living there now in fire gutted region, will not let them repair the pipes unless “horses and stone tools” are used. A wheelbarrow was deemed “too mechanized” and not allowed. Absolute insanity. See the link: http://www.allamericanblogger.com/21262/dc-tells-tombstone-az-they-can-repair-water-system-as-long-as-they-use-horses-and-hand-tools/
You’re getting awfully close to just throwing a ‘word salad’ together to support a case; please step lightly and understand what you are penning …
(i.e., do not conflate power factor correction (cap banks) due to motor/inductive loads, protective switching (reclosers: think auto resettable breakers) used to protect individual distribution lines and voltage regulators (auto-step tap transformer and tap changers) used to compensate for a voltage drops for their specific intended purposes)
.
I can envision the headlines now:
“Global warming disrupts solar power supply.’
Almost makes you wish for the introduction of ‘smart meters’ – so that the idiots that SUPPORT these policies can be the first to be deprived of the power it’s supposed to produce.
Paul Penrose says:
May 12, 2012 at 10:40 am
In Germany we have the choice between
Pirate Party (pro renewable energy)
Die Linke (ex c0mmunists) (pro renewable energy)
Greens (ex c0mmunists) (pro renewable energy)
SPD (socialists) (pro renewable energy)
CDU (RINO’s) (pro renewable energy)
FDP (classic liberals) (pro renewable energy as long as it doesn’t cost so much. People hate them.)
I think I’ll take a day off during the next federal election.
What we have here is an opportunity to make a point. Shut ’em all down. See what the consequences are.
I wish the UK and Germany and a few other countries hadnt rushed so fast to go green. I hope they can fix the problems. I hope other countries can learn from their mistakes.
John W Garrett quotes Putin;
“But I cannot understand what fuel you will take for heating. You do not want gas, you do not develop the nuclear power industry, so you will heat with firewood?” Putin then noted, “You will have to go to Siberia to buy the firewood there,”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Sad, isn’t it, that speaking the truth about environmental and economic issues on the world stage has fallen to Russia and China? Little surprise I suppose, they are interested in expanding their power base and world influence, something they can only do by expanding their economies.
The (soon to be not) free world seems more interested in self loathing.
In the U.K., which has laboured under the most politically correct climate leadership in the world…
Is that right? I thought mainland Europe (in particular Germany) was worse than us? Blimey.
An energy grid that is even occasionally unstable means many businesses have no choice but to move. As someone who works in microelectronics manufacturing I can tell you that a power interruption of less than a second makes almost all work in progress scrap. Since the lead time on some chips is as much as 2 months this means missed orders.
While a company may be able to endure the higher cost of renewables and even the loss of product resulting from outages they simply cannot endure losing customers due to late shipments.
David, UK says:
May 12, 2012 at 12:48 pm
I’m tracking UK as well as German news. Germany has even less debate of the reason all that stuff is done than the UK, and waaaayyyyy more anti-nuclear hysteria.
If you read my “Civilzation’s Wrecking Ball” comment above, I hope you check out the Tombstone link. It points to another weapon that will be added (beyond cap & trade) to the leftists’ arsenal against industrial civilization.
I wasn’t even really sure that the legend of Tombstone was an actual place, but it’s kind of ironic, you have Tombstone symbolizing raw and rough freedom and the American frontier spirit… cowed or rolled over by the federal pencil-pushing bureaucrats and econuts.
So, what Tombstone shows is that not only would cap & trade directly cause deindustrialization, but the leftists if they could would simply mandate deindustrialization wherever they can. Would wheelbarrows be “too mechanized?”
http://www.allamericanblogger.com/21262/dc-tells-tombstone-az-they-can-repair-water-system-as-long-as-they-use-horses-and-hand-tools/
I believe that Die Welt is incorrect in their staement that a blackout in Germany would cost billions of Euros a day. A sustained blackout in Germany the only major creditworthy nation in the Eurozone, would eliminate the Euro. Most of the zone is dependent on German credit through the various European stablitiy funds and the European Central Bank. Without the high earnings of German export industries, the Euro is an interesting historical footnote. I have some old Deutsch Marks in my socks drawer. I expect they will be back again.
Peter Miller says:
May 12, 2012 at 8:52 am
The UK is committed to a policy of rapid expansion of expensive electricity from renewables, which will inevitably lead to rolling brown outs and black outs. However, this is still 5-6 years away, Germany was just quicker off the mark in embracing insane and unsustainable energy policies.
==============================================================
I wonder if governments have paused to consider the possible social consequences of imposing black-outs upon certain sections of the population.
If they imagine that everyone is going to sit peaceably at home, playing Scrabble by candlelight while waiting patiently for the lights to come back on, methinks they’re in for a rude awakening.
d says:
May 12, 2012 at 12:35 pm
I wish the UK and Germany and a few other countries hadnt rushed so fast to go green. I hope they can fix the problems. I hope other countries can learn from their mistakes.
Whoa! I’m still hoping we can learn from Germany’s mistakes!
David, UK says:
May 12, 2012 at 1:57 pm
“Whoa! I’m still hoping we can learn from Germany’s mistakes!”
Ample opportunity.
Step 1: Don’t join the Euro. But you knew that already, didn’t you?
Posted on Pierre Gosselin’s website at
http://notrickszone.com/2012/05/11/germanys-federal-network-agency-power-grid-on-the-brink-thanks-to-renewable-energies/
Hi Pierre,
The German energy crisis is not a surprise. We predicted this outcome a decade ago for those countries that adopted all the inanities of the Kyoto Protocol – see our point 8 below.
8. The ultimate agenda of pro-Kyoto advocates is to eliminate fossil fuels, but this would result in a catastrophic shortfall in global energy supply – the wasteful, inefficient energy solutions proposed by Kyoto advocates simply cannot replace fossil fuels.
Our eight-point summary* includes a number of predictions that have all materialized in those countries in Western Europe that have adopted the full measure of global warming mania. My country, Canada, was foolish enough to sign the Kyoto Protocol, but then wise enough to ignore it.
To date, our predictive record is infinitely better than that of the IPCC. But then, none of the IPCC’s scary predictions have materialized.
Our successful predictions were neither difficult nor high-risk – rather our points were logical and obvious to anyone with a strong technical background, who was not infatuated with global warming mania.
Since we wrote our 2002 article, contrary to IPCC predictions, there has been NO net global warming, and probably some moderate cooling. This very-scary global warming crisis is so reliable – it never fails to underperform.
The predictive record of the global warming movement and the IPCC is near-perfect, but in the negative – to date, it has been 100% incorrect – completely false.
How does the global warming movement retain any credibility, when they deserve none?
P.S. I predicted global cooling by 2020-2030 in an article published in 2002. It may happen sooner – maybe even about now. Bundle up!
________________________
* Summary:
http://www.apegga.org/Members/Publications/peggs/WEB11_02/kyoto_pt.htm
Kyoto has many fatal flaws, any one of which should cause this treaty to be scrapped.
1. Climate science does not support the theory of catastrophic human-made global warming – the alleged warming crisis does not exist.
2. Kyoto focuses primarily on reducing CO2, a relatively harmless gas, and does nothing to control real air pollution like NOx, SO2, and particulates, or serious pollutants in water and soil.
3. Kyoto wastes enormous resources that are urgently needed to solve real environmental and social problems that exist today. For example, the money spent on Kyoto in one year would provide clean drinking water and sanitation for all the people of the developing world in perpetuity.
4. Kyoto will destroy hundreds of thousands of jobs and damage the Canadian economy – the U.S., Canada’s biggest trading partner, will not ratify Kyoto, and developing countries are exempt.
5. Kyoto will actually hurt the global environment – it will cause energy-intensive industries to move to exempted developing countries that do not control even the worst forms of pollution.
6. Kyoto’s CO2 credit trading scheme punishes the most energy efficient countries and rewards the most wasteful. Due to the strange rules of Kyoto, Canada will pay the former Soviet Union billions of dollars per year for CO2 credits.
7. Kyoto will be ineffective – even assuming the overstated pro-Kyoto science is correct, Kyoto will reduce projected warming insignificantly, and it would take as many as 40 such treaties to stop alleged global warming.
8. The ultimate agenda of pro-Kyoto advocates is to eliminate fossil fuels, but this would result in a catastrophic shortfall in global energy supply – the wasteful, inefficient energy solutions proposed by Kyoto advocates simply cannot replace fossil fuels.
E.On Netz, the largest wind power generator in the world, in their report “Wind Power 2005” describes the problems.
http://www.wind-watch.org/documents/wp-content/uploads/eonwindreport2005.pdf
One of the greatest disadvantages of wind power is the need for almost 100% conventional backup. E.On Netz says the “substitution capacity” in Germany was 8% in 2003, and will drop to 4% by 2020. See Figure 7 in the E.On report.
In concrete terms, this means that in 2020,
with a forecast wind power capacity of over
48,000MW (Source: dena grid study), 2,000MW of
traditional power production can be replaced by
these wind farms.
Another big problem with wind power is that power varies as the cube of the wind speed – this causes sharp peaks and valleys in the power output from wind farms, so extreme that it can cause the entire grid to crash – try that in winter – remember the 1998 Ontario-Quebec ice storm? Many people died as a direct resutl of this huge power failure.
A near-miss occurred in German during Christmas week of 2004 – see Fig. 6 in the E.on report.
The feed-in capacity can change frequently
within a few hours. This is shown in FIGURE 6,
which reproduces the course of wind power feedin
during the Christmas week from 20 to 26
December 2004.
Whilst wind power feed-in at 9.15am on
Christmas Eve reached its maximum for the year
at 6,024MW, it fell to below 2,000MW within only
10 hours, a difference of over 4,000MW. This corresponds
to the capacity of 8 x 500MW coal fired
power station blocks. On Boxing Day, wind power
feed-in in the E.ON grid fell to below 40MW.
Handling such significant differences in feed-in
levels poses a major challenge to grid operators.
Germans are insane, they always were. They may seem to be accurate & rational people at the surface, but deep down there lurks a dark emotional snarl. Fracking was just banned the other day, they are disbanding all their nuclear power plants and coal fired ones are also scheduled to be shut down.
The net result is that they will be entirely dependent on Russian gas and to a lesser extent on French nuclear generated electricity.
Or they are simply going for a late self-inflicted implementation of the grave Morgenthau Plan. If so, it is granted that the rest of Europe will go down the drain with them, as it has already happened several times in recent history.
Berényi Péter says:
May 12, 2012 at 2:46 pm
“Germans are insane, they always were. They may seem to be accurate & rational people at the surface, but deep down there lurks a dark emotional snarl.”
I’m living there and I dispute the notion that they appear rational at the surface. You’re projecting.
neill says: “Something really, really bad is going to have to happen first. The Warmists are blind to the disaster they are building toward. Let’s pray that when it happens it doesn’t take the global economy down with it. Thing is, when an energy infrastructure is allowed to downgrade to this point, reversing course when it happens could take some time — which there may not be a lot of.”
In the mind of Socialists, the remedy for failed Socialism is always more Socialism. And so it will be with the German and UK energy sectors. The lunatics are in full charge of the asylum.
I also read Pierre’s blog to track what is going on in Germany. I wish no ill on the German people, but I have been morbidly watching, expecting a collapse of their grid. I hope we will be able to learn from their example before it is too late for us.
There’s nothing like a few blackouts to prompt a quick change in government.
realtime grid data
Collapsing New People.
ferd berple says: May 12, 2012 at 10:01
Here in BC the local power company (BC Hydro) makes hundreds of millions of dollars a year as a result of the problems the US has in turning power on and off on the grid.
—- —- —-
Because of the previous Gordon Campbell, head of B.C.s’ provincial government (Liberal), “Green” stupidity, whereupon climate change was supposedly causing less rain and snow in B.C., we are not benefiting as well as you think.
From the Vancouver Sun:
“After a bumper year for precipitation in the Pacific Northwest, BC Hydro stations around British Columbia are sitting idle while independent power producers run flat out.
There’s so much water available for hydroelectric power that a Washington-Oregon utility, which runs full-time to protect salmon and trout, is paying other utilities to take electricity off its hands.
That means bargain-priced import electricity is available to BC Hydro from the Bonneville Power Authority, but it’s a bittersweet opportunity.
It’s difficult for BC Hydro to tap into the cheap power because of contractual obligations to purchase power from about 75 independent power producers (IPPs). Hydro is forced to buy from IPP operators, including big industrial ones such as Rio Tinto Alcan and Teck Resources, even as its own generation stations wait on standby. For example, at Peace Canyon generating station downstream of W.A.C. Bennett Dam on the Peace River, the primary source of hydroelectricity for all of B.C., the turbines are sitting idle for the first time in a decade.”
Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Hydro+awash+private+power/6605915/story.html#ixzz1uhLrvH00
So B.C. ratepayers are paying more for electricity than we otherwise would be if it wasn’t for the useless climate change policies.
Models are approximations of reality and in fact it is often a very poor approximation of the complexities of reality. However, there are people living in ivory towers or in a disneyland like world that to them the model is just as good as reality if it is not better than reality. They start to believe, they could continue their lifestyle without any manufacturing industry. They could send all the manufacturing and heavy industries to developing countries, out of sight and out of mind. They could continue to flourish trading on bonds and derivatives, or from mark ups and advertisement selling the goods manufactured elsewhere. Somehow there is a need for a “COME ON MOMENT” to bring back societies into the harsh world of reality.
.
You know, there is only one flaw in Liberal Fantasy politics, and Liberal Fantasy science – Reality.
Now if they could only do away with that troublesome thing called Reality, the world would be a wonderful place….
😉
Predictably, this was all predicted many years ago – 2004, to be precise. But still the Liberal Fantasists dream on….
WUWT – Renewable energy – our downfall?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/05/25/renewable-energy-–-our-downfall/
For a power source to be defined as alternative, it must not work.
Germany seems to be a great nation for following an idea, in this case alternative energy, to its logical conclusion without letting any ameleiorating policies get in the way of said logical conclusion.
Penrose says “The big question there, as in Germany, is whether the people will realize who is really to blame and change their voting choices accordingly. ”
Unfortunately I live in California and very sadly, the answer is a definite NO when it comes to the majority of people realizing and changing their voting accordingly. We already had the chance to nix the AB32 global warming regs at the ballot box last year and it was solidly voted down. There are so many clueless liberal sheep in this state that they will all be blaming “big oil” and “big coal” and the evil utility companies for the high cost of intermittent energy. RIght now there will be two mulit-billion dollar referendums on the ballot this fall to raise taxes, both sales and income and they both have a chance of passing. The voters already also gave the state the ability to pass a budget with a simple majority, thus negating the need for even one republican vote on the budget.
I suspect that what’s going on in Tombstone AZ has less to do with ecology and more to do with Obama’s revenge against their governor.
You see global warming was misrepresented. They forgot to say that, if the predicted disasters did not happen naturally, they would make the disasters happen anyhow.
However, instead of the poor in undeveloped countries suffering from (non-existent) climate problems, which they knew would not happen, it’s the poor of developed countries, and all their citizens for that matter, who suffer the destruction created by the global warming scam and the UN’s Agenda 21 world destruction/domination scheme. They have to create a permanent world recession to persuade the world’s countries to allow them to “save” the world.
Of course, the UN would have to impose Draconian limitations on all wealth creation and prosperity to prevent effective rebellion. The biggest thorn in the UN’s plan is the fact that the US has an armed citizenry, which a one-world government cannot allow or tolerate. There’s good reason that Hillary is laboring to impose the UN’s Small Arms Treaty, which would require registry of all privately owned small arms. Why on Earth would they need that information, if it was not for, at some time, going after all weapons. (They claim it’s to control illegal weapon shipments. I fail to see how our weapons have anything to do with illegal arms.)
>>>John W. Garrett says: May 12, 2012 at 11:42 am
>>One of my favorite quotations:
>> http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/newsarticle.aspx?id=28907
>>>Putin suggests Germans replace nuclear with firewood
>>01 December 2010
Thats what I like about Russians. As a people they are completely bonkers, but they sure do live in a real, plain-speaking world.
There are no niceties or political correctness in Russia; if you want the salt passed, you say “дайте мне соль” – “GIVE ME THE SALT” ….. 😉
The numbers have been there for all to see since the beginning of “Green madness”. California won’t be far behind as the far sighted “canary in the U.S. Green Energy mine” it has insisted on becoming. Its currently proposed massive tax increase and escalating utility rates are only the beginning as money and jobs walk away from The Golden State. In the meantime, how about a $100 billion bullet train to nowhere?
This video comes to mind: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOOs8MaR1YM
1. Allan MacRae says:
May 12, 2012 at 2:33 pm
“Kyoto focuses primarily on reducing CO2, a relatively harmless gas, and does nothing to control real air pollution like NOx, SO2, and particulates, or serious pollutants in water and soil'”
Actually, CO2 is essential for plants, which release oxygen, and thus essential for all who live on this world.
After the Japan earthquake last year, our power went off for three days. Living in the cold and dark was no fun, but bearable. The real issue was that without power we had no water. At home we were OK because I had filled the bath for drinking water, and I could collect snow melt to flush the dunnies. It would be interesting to see the effect of a 3 day blackout and no water on a major city. Sewage systems need water to operate. It’s not going to be pleasant.
It’s always darkest before it goes completely black.
Keep marching towards the cliff. Green lemmings believe they can fly.
Len says: May 12, 2012 at 5:28 pm
Allan MacRae says:
May 12, 2012 at 2:33 pm
“Kyoto focuses primarily on reducing CO2, a relatively harmless gas, and does nothing to control real air pollution like NOx, SO2, and particulates, or serious pollutants in water and soil’”
Len: Actually, CO2 is essential for plants, which release oxygen, and thus essential for all who live on this world.
_______________
Thanks Len – we knew this in 2002; in fact we knew this in 1952 – something to do with photosynthesis – look up Chlorophyll gum and toothpaste. 🙂
But we were talking about real pollution versus alleged very-scary “CO2 pollution”.
How is your predictive record? Ours is pretty good.
ChE says:
May 12, 2012 at 9:28 am
An earthquake happens in Japan. All the nuke plants shut down in Germany. Now they need to buy more gas from Russia.
Huh?
They’ve been brainwashed that nuclear is EVIL for 40 years sans cesse, including all the people in the media and in politics. Green electricity costs nothing and is limitless (once you install a few trillion windmills and plaster the landscape solid with PV panels). That’s three generations solid. Merkel seized the opportunity to finish the No Nukes policy – if there are a few problems, it will be others’ peoples fault.
Unfortunately, it will take more than a few medium-sized blackouts to bring the Germans to their senses: anything short of at least 2 solid weeks for at least 25-30 million people will be blamed on evil power companies sabotaging the Revolution (so let’s nationalize them!). And even if the Green Idiocracy collapses, those who back it now will never see anything wrong with it – like the Nazi stooges (extinct by now) or the Communists after them (still alive and kicking, thank you very much).
Right; the Precautionary Principle should say, “avoid mitigation at all costs” — it’s deadly dangerous and very high probability. Instead, the PP is applied to mostly beneficial and very low probability warming. Human stupidity, as Einstein said, is truly unlimited.
Wording note:
. (You can only “enumerate” items or events.)
Anything is possible says: @ May 12, 2012 at 1:31 pm
I wonder if governments have paused to consider the possible social consequences of imposing black-outs upon certain sections of the population.
If they imagine that everyone is going to sit peaceably at home, playing Scrabble by candlelight while waiting patiently for the lights to come back on, methinks they’re in for a rude awakening.
____________________________________________
They have certainly considered it and have already set the legal frame work in place to deal with it at least here in the USA. (I have not followed what the similar policies might be in Europe)
#1 Repeal of Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, a law preventing deployment of US military troops within the USA. Now thanks to the John Warner Defense Authorization Act (Oct 17, 2006) “Use of the Armed Forces in major public emergencies” is allowed.
#2 <The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), signed into law by President Obama, will authorize the U.S. military to conduct law enforcement actions on American soil." The NDAA adds the option to imprison citizens indefinitely without due process, thereby selectively suspended habeus corpus. Forbes Article and analysis by a lawyer link
#3 The Patriot Act. ‘Nuf said.
#4 Declaring a “War on Terror” is not just a catchy phrase. It has legal ramifications that most citizens are unaware of because it invokes the laws of war. Book: The War on Terror and the Laws of War: A Military Perspective
#5 Febuary 14 2008 Canada and the U.S. have signed an agreement that paves the way for the militaries from either nation to send troops across each other’s borders during an emergency…
Gee, looks like all they need is the “Emergency” they are so busy preparing for. /sarc
Rhoda R says:
May 12, 2012 at 4:36 pm
I suspect that what’s going on in Tombstone AZ has less to do with ecology and more to do with Obama’s revenge against their governor.
__________________________
I do not know if these guys are nutters or not but they cite Supreme Court cases. I ran across them while looking for something else and have not had the chance to do any research. Looks like Tombstone needs to delve into the matter. The County Sheriff:The Ultimate Check & Balance
Trying to find a positive aspect, Polish, Czech and French electricity generators are probably salivating at the prospect of being able to sell electricity across the border. But it may not come in time for Germans who could end up burning the furniture to stay warm.
In the Uk, preparations have also been made in the last 20 years. We now have; arrest without suspicion, detention without charge, punishment without trial, armed police, police not tried for
unlawful killings, the police breaking the law as a matter of policy, secret courts, secret evidence
secret witnesses; we’ve lost the right to silence, we’ve lost the presumption of innocence, and so on, and so on.
Re Sleepalot’s comments: as Thomas Jeffrson once said (I think), “…the people do not often lose all of their rights at one time, but rather through gradual usurpations…..”.
All they need to do is have something serious happen like they are left with no power for 1 week. Pretty much there wont be much of a govt left after a week..
2% of household currently with no power is a tragedy but a whole country out of power is a riot waiting to happen.
_Jim says:
May 12, 2012 at 12:04 pm
James Sexton says on May 12, 2012 at 8:58 am
…
A properly maintained grid to ensure quality of service must have strategically placed equipment on the grid such as capacitors, regulators, and re-closures (switches) and the like. Wire size is a huge consideration …
You’re getting awfully close to just throwing a ‘word salad’ together to support a case; please step lightly and understand what you are penning …
(i.e., do not conflate power factor correction (cap banks) due to motor/inductive loads, protective switching (reclosers: think auto resettable breakers) used to protect individual distribution lines and voltage regulators (auto-step tap transformer and tap changers) used to compensate for a voltage drops for their specific intended purposes)
===========================================
And you’re awful close to missing my point by taking my previous comments out of your quote. The sizing and settings of every one of those pieces of equipment are contingent upon distance away from the source and energy available, as well as direction the source is coming from.
Damn bro, if you didn’t understand what I stated, you could have just asked.
Well Allan, if you are satisfied with…CO2 is relativelly innocous… as opposed to vital for life , then I guess you comments make sense. And to suggest looking up introductory terms in plant science is also good I guess. Thank you so much. Enough, I think, and not up to the standards of the forum. Take care.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/01/10/polar-sea-ice-changes-are-having-a-net-cooling-effect-on-the-climate/#comment-72001
Simply, the wind often does not blow when we need the peak power – so we need a ~same-size conventional power station over the hill, spinning and ready to take over when the wind dies… …the fact that wind power varies as the cube power of the wind speed is a further problem – power variations in the grid due to varying wind speed can cause serious grid upsets, even shutdowns.
Just one such blackout in a cold winter could have devastating results – for a preview, look up a sampling of the mortality stats during the Ontario-Quebec Ice Storm of 1998.
Volume 25-17, September 1, 1999
http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/webarchives/20071225014130/http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/publicat/ccdr-rmtc/99vol25/dr2517ea.html
@__Jim
So, I went back and re-read what I had wrote, because I do allow that sometimes what I stated isn’t all that clear. I find that not to be the case here. I’ll replicate the pertinent part of my comment.
Upon inspection, I see that I didn’t come anywhere near conflating those pieces of equipment. I’d like you to note the different names I used. In my estimation, a 5 y/o could understand these things aren’t used for the same purposes, hence, the different naming conventions. But, just in case you are still unclear as to the specific points I was making, I’ll give you an example. Reclosers come in various sizes and have various curve settings. The sizes would be relational to the source of the energy, that is to say, the size of the reclosures nearest the substation(source, more amps) would be larger than further down the line depending on load. So, when the utility places them and then down the line large amounts of solar energy is intermittently added to the system, the sizing convention and curve settings get all messed up. Regulators(the ones I was referring to) are placed to mostly to correct for voltage drop as the energy gets further away from the source. Again, adding energy intermittently down the line confuses the proper placement of the regulator. Capacitors operate unidirectional. Again, the proper placement is dependent upon amps on the line at that particular location. Do you see how this would effect the mentioned quality of service? Was I clear there or do you need further clarification/elucidation?
Typo, first line of article, rearrange:
“Germany escaped only just ”
[Thanks – but it is a direct quote of the original article, strange phraseology and all ~jove, mod]
ChE says:
May 12, 2012 at 9:28 am
An earthquake happens in Japan. All the nuke plants shut down in Germany. Now they need to buy more gas from Russia.
Huh?
—————————————————————-
Its worse than that. Germany is now forced to import gigawats of electricity from France, and French electrical power is – you’ve guessed it – 95% nuclear.
Double, Huh??
Apparently, nuclear power is perfectly ok as long as you look the other way and pretend it is not nulcear power. That’s Green logic for you.
The UK is only a few years behind
“Queen’s Speech 2012: energy laws will send bills soaring”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9255001/Queens-Speech-2012-energy-laws-will-send-bills-soaring.html
“The new laws revealed in the Queen’s Speech will bring in a raft of costly subsidies to help energy companies pay for “green” electricity. British households will have to cover the cost of the subsidies through their energy bills over the next 20 years.”
I sure hope our dunderhead politicians down here read this piece, especially the Lawrence Solomon article in the National Post. Texas still has generation capacity problems, but nowhere near like what is described as happening in Germany. I am grateful for $0.10 Kw/h, I want it to stay that way.
James Sexton says: May 13, 2012 at 12:24 am RE: Control of power grids.
Agreed. When you study alternating current theory, you learn of an idealised form where the sinusoidal sariation of current, I and voltage, E, are in phase so that the power, W, which is the product of the former two, EI, is maximised. Then for transmission lines introduce ‘quadrature’ so that the (usual) three phases are neatly spaced in time for both voltage and current. The point is that there are already nearly 10 variables that need to be kept under control to gain maximum transmission efficiency even in this very simplified description. There are transmission losses in any case via the resistance of the cable.
The compact fluorescent lamp or CFL, is a known offender for throwing voltage and current out of synch. When one adds all of the inputs and returns into an actual system, it becomes quite difficult to optimise, which is the valid point that James is making. In olden times, lines were meant to convey power outwards from a central facility. With interlocked grids and erratic devices like windmills feeding in with time-variant intensity and sometimes phase, losses increase.
These are classroom concepts for electrical engineers, but they are often unknown or unstated by those who simply bleat that wind power has to be good because it does not make much CO2. There’s more than CO2 in the equation.
David, UK says:
May 12, 2012 at 1:57 pm
“Whoa! I’m still hoping we can learn from Germany’s mistakes!”
DirkH says:
May 12, 2012 at 2:30 pm
Ample opportunity.
Step 1: Don’t join the Euro. But you knew that already, didn’t you?
Absolutely – it comes from having a long history of being dominators (for better and worse) rather than dominated. A common currency goes hand-in-hand with a common government. There’s no way a Brit could stomach that.
I don’t mean this unkindly, but Germans seem way too happy to be manipulated by politicians into self destruction. It’s like you don’t actually want liberty. Having said that, I have a good German friend who grew up in the old GDR, and she’s very libertarian because she’s experienced socialism and can smell it coming. Right now both you guys and we in the UK could really use our own Ron Pauls – the more I read about this guy, the more I think he’s the free West’s best hope.
James Sexton says:
May 13, 2012 at 12:24 am
James, you are entirely right. The grid has a hierarchical structure designed to send power from central stations into the top layer high voltage transmission lines and from there down to the smaller, lower voltage subgrids. Power is NOT send up from a villages grid to the next layer up the hierarchy. Rather, as the villages grid gets saturated with solar power, the upper level grid layer can send less power down into the smaller grid. This works until the small grid is oversaturated by its own PV production, at which point it fails. This happens frequently in villages with many PV installations but doesn’t affect the higher levels; the small grids just blackout. So when you’re in a village, and people around you mount more and more PV panels, you know it’s going to get instable. When a single wind turbine appears next to your village, woe betide. That one’s a whopper for your tiny grid.
What destabilizes the national grid is the larger swarms of wind turbines, the wind parks, which are always grouped around an existing power plant with access to the high level layers. Only this power is sent around. For instance a 300 MW gas plant 10 km south of Braunschweig is surrounded by about 40 or 50 big wind turbines. Similar groupings exist around other 300 MW class power plants. I live in a flat part of the country with a few hills, from such a hill, looking around the country, when you know where the power plants are, you see the wind parks exactly at the same places. The need to be – these are the only access points to feed power INTO the high level grid layer.
That being said, they try to alleviate the instabilities by making the inverters of solar panels switch off automatically when the grid frequency rises (which is the signal for overload); but this can lead to more dynamic problems – when all the small PV installations fall off the small village grid exactly at the same time, you get a sudden flip from near-overload to a lack of power…
Of course the end vision is the Smart Grid with smart meters everywhere and some distributed intelligence like the Internet’s capability to route around failures and built-in redundancy, but people oppose any power line being built, so good luck with that…
Here in California we have had the pleasure of rolling blackouts. Back under Governor Grey (out) Davis. We had a recall election and dumped him. Power has been stable since ( as they tossed out the rules his side imposed).
During that time I bought 2 generators. A 4 kW job for cheap that ran big things like the washer and dryer with big starter motor load. A 1 kW Honda that is just fine for all the lights and entertainment center and fridge. Quiet as can be and very economical.
Since then I’ve sold the big one to a friend as we didn’t need it any more…
Then they passed our version of Kyoto.
To the person who said it will cause companies to leave: To Late. Large chunks already left. Computer data centers in particular (where I used to get many contracts) and various kinds of fab and manufacture. During the rolling blackout days, they packed up and left. Car manufacturing too. And a host of others.
I had just bought a battery box and 1 kW inverter and was about to assemble it to stabilize my power when we got a new governor and stable electricity. The parts are still in the garage.
On my last electric bill, I noticed the marginal rate was “20 something” cents / kw-Hr. As they sell me natural gas for about $1 / gallon of gas equivalent; I can make my own electricity with a natural gas generator for about 15 cents / kW-hr.
Now perhaps someone can explain to me what rational world has it cheaper to make your own using retail fuel and retail machinery, vs baseload coal and nukes, but I don’t care. On my to-do list is to get the battery box and inverter bolted together and in place, just waiting for the batteries, and be ready to flip all the lighting, entertainment, and fridge onto it. (The major energy suck of the electric stove / oven and the washer / dryer can stay unbuffered. I have a nice gas bbq, camp stove et. al and wash only needs be done once a week, so ‘whenever’). My bill reports my average consumption is less than a kW run rate. So the battery box / inverter will run all that stuff even through a grid outage. If I need to, I can fire up the generator (to charge batteries or for added uses like the electric lawn mower…)
IFF we end up at that point, I’ll likely add a natural gas driven generator and just start making my own power across the board as a cogeneration setup. It will pay me about a nickel / kW-hr anyway…. and the gas supply is stable, too.
Honda makes a nice residential unit:
http://www.honda.com/newsandviews/article.aspx?id=200704033944
presently only sold in the East, but I have friends 😉
I liked the world better when I didn’t have to be my own power company…
FWIW, this is my ‘minimal emergency power kit’
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2011/02/17/minimalist-emergency-power/
The bulb and cord with the small car adapter live in my backpack. The 300 W inverter says in the car. Assembled during the days of Grey(out) Davis. Handy when visiting friends and the power went out. Can charge a few laptops, cellphones, provide light, run a radio or small TV. Dirt cheap ( about $40 ) and as long as your car runs to recharge the car battery, you have power. Weeks for this kit.
But then again, it doesn’t snow here, so heat is a question of preference, not survival…
I just wish someone would drive off the cliff first, and in spectacular fashion, so the rest of us didn’t have to…
James Sexton says:
May 13, 2012 at 12:24 am
@__Jim
So, I went back and re-read what I had wrote, because I do allow that sometimes what I stated isn’t all that clear. I find that not to be the case here. I’ll replicate the pertinent part of my comment.
Their solar panels wreak havoc on a grid system. This is something many people don’t readily understand. Grids have a specific design depending not only on how much is coming on the grid, but also where.
A properly maintained grid to ensure quality of service must have strategically placed equipment on the grid such as capacitors, regulators, and re-closures (switches) and the like. Wire size is a huge consideration. When you have an indeterminable amount of energy coming onto the grid from indeterminable places, your grid is at a horrible risk. Add this variable influx of the solar to the wind and you’ve got a very unstable grid.
————————————————————————————————————————————
How all this square wave power affects available fault currents is also a concern I have. That is where it all starts as far as protection within an end use facility especially if you are located at the end of a transmission line where there happens to be solar connected. There are a lot of very smart people working on making this stuff work but………
WTF says:
May 13, 2012 at 6:03 am
“How all this square wave power affects available fault currents is also a concern I have.”
All modern solar inverters produce perfect sine waves. They have digital signal processors and IGBT’s for power switches, pulse width modulated with 15 kHz or more; smoothed with inductivities.
Even the tiny cheap 100W emergency inverter I stashed away in my car (exactly like E. M. Smith) produces trapezoid wave voltage – and I wouldn’t feed that into the grid but use it to create my own “insular grid”.
I happened to buy some Tuborg (iconic Danish brand) beer yesterday and was really surprised to see that it was brewed in Turkey…wonder if this has something to do with it:
“…Denmark, an early adopter of the global-warming mania, now requires its households to pay the developed world’s highest power prices — about 40¢ a kilowatt hour, or three to four times what North Americans pay today…”
Dirk, I’ve seen lots of IGBTs blow up real good. Now granted that is on VFDs where by design there is a lot of frequency modulation to control speed and not used for constant output to syncronize with a grid.
The way things are going in the EU we will soon be seeing Germans taking wheelbarrows loaded with the Euro to buy their bread. We all know how that turned out the last time. Uber alles EU! The thousand year state of the EU is headed for a short and loud end.
David, UK says:
May 12, 2012 at 12:48 pm
“In the U.K., which has laboured under the most politically correct climate leadership in the world…
Is that right? I thought mainland Europe (in particular Germany) was worse than us? Blimey.”
The Germans will straighten [their] problems out quickly. The rest of the EU, not so much.
I remember the gas lines in1973-1974 brought about by the combination of an Arab embargo and US government price controls.
Environmental regulations made impossible any refinery construction in the Northeast.
In 1973-74. Federal regulations had required supplying Northeast customers with oil and natural gas at regulated prices. Also,Northeast politicians had suggested that Texans should have conserved energy during this out-of-state energy giveaway.
As a result the phrase, and bumper sticker , “Let the bastards freeze in the dark ” became popular. It deserves to become popular again.
Some posts above muse that perhaps failing power supplies will help people learn their lesson.
No, the eco-fascists know exactly what they are doing. The goal is to eliminate all sources of power that are not “renewable” and it is well understood that the result will be much less power. The ideal is to have communities of humans sequestered from the world in small pre-industrial enclaves.
This will of course, require a dramatic reduction in the world’s population. This is point 5 of the Deep Ecology manifesto:
5) The flourishing of human life and cultures is compatible with a substantial decrease of the human population. The flourishing of nonhuman life requires such a decrease.
While we sometimes laugh at the foolishness of AGW, do not loose sight of one important fact. This is a serious and deadly game they are playing.
—————————————————————-
Its worse than that. Germany is now forced to import gigawats of electricity from France, and French electrical power is – you’ve guessed it – 95% nuclear.
Actually it is 82.5% nuclear on average. Hollande has promised the greens that he will close anything from 1 nucliare centrale to 18 NC. If he chooses the 18 then Europe and the UK will have rolling blackouts or reduced power. If he chooses the one then it’s likely the green comunists will demand more. One will only cause minor problems in eastern France in deep winter but that would be a major problem for the germans because that take power from the east which will no longer be available.
Sean says:
May 13, 2012 at 9:06 am
The way things are going in the EU we will soon be seeing Germans taking wheelbarrows loaded with the Euro to buy their bread. We all know how that turned out the last time. Uber alles EU! The thousand year state of the EU is headed for a short and loud end.
You are probably right but the germans have two major issues.
1 They are keeping the EU afloat on their own but even their industries are heading into another recession. They need the euro because the Dmark would be too expensive for their exports to sell as well as they do right now.
2 They are the only country in the EU that was given the right to exit without penalty. All other EU members have no right of exit but they can be cut adrift by the rest. Eg The Greeks.
The german sheeples are already showing signs of revolt but as a commenter mentioned earlier they do not have the choice of electing a party which does not support AGW and renewables. However, politicians being the slimy little creatures that they are will soon find the right bandwagon if the sheeples can find the intellect to tell them which it is.
In general, I trust the german people to find the right answer. However, the brits couldn’t find their own backsides without being shown. There is no hope for them i’m afraid. They have shown already that when push comes to shove they will vote for the other party no matter what their policies. See recent elections.
Alan D McIntire says:
May 13, 2012 at 12:47 pm
I remember the gas lines in 1973-1974 brought about by the combination of an Arab embargo and US government price controls…..
____________________
The 1973- 1974 Oil “Shortage” was a bit of creative pressuring. I know a trucker, who hauled gasoline during that time period. The refinery he hauled for was stuffed to the gills and was having trouble trying to find places to put it. Other truckers I talked to verified this. The Oil companies wanted a price increase and the Oil “Shortage” was how they got it. Looking into the politics of ARAMCO shows just how murky the whole situation is. Alternate ARAMCO info.
As we can see from CAGW the surface appearance according to the Mass Media is no where near the truth.
In reply to Gail Combs: President Reagan ended all price controls, as a result, no gas lines.
Areas with shortages will bid up the price, areas with relative surpluses will bid down the price.
Under Presidents Nixon and Carter we got gas lines as a result of set prices,- areas with shortages couldn’t bit up prices- so we got mal-distribution.
Meanwhile, here in Maryland, our democrat governor, Martin O’Malley, and his minions in the democrat controlled State Senate and House of Delegates, are pushing Maryland towards more green energy. They could care less about the negative consequences. Thankfully, we do have connections to the national grid, so although our electricity costs will sky rocket, at least those who can afford it will have electricity. I feel sorry for the poor in Maryland, even though they are the idiots who keep the democrats in power.
Jay Davis
Sean says:
May 13, 2012 at 9:06 am
“The way things are going in the EU we will soon be seeing Germans taking wheelbarrows loaded with the Euro to buy their bread. We all know how that turned out the last time. Uber alles EU! The thousand year state of the EU is headed for a short and loud end.”
Highly unlikely. One of the preconditions that made WW II possible was a youth bulge. In those years, German cities expanded rapidly. You need millions of unemployed young people you can radicalize. The Germans are too old and don’t procreate.
Len May 12, 2012 at 5:28 pm :
So sorry you do not like our 2002 article – was our predictive record too accurate for your delicate nature?
Is this 2009 post on CO2 and life “good enough” for you?
Your comments are simply rude and ignorant.
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http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/01/30/co2-temperatures-and-ice-ages/#comment-79426
(Plant) Food for Thought (apologies – written too late at night)
Background:
http://www.planetnatural.com/site/xdpy/kb/implementing-co2.html
1. “As CO2 is a critical component of growth, plants in environments with inadequate CO2 levels – below 200 ppm – will cease to grow or produce.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_in_the_Earth's_atmosphere
2. “The longest ice core record comes from East Antarctica, where ice has been sampled to an age of 800 kyr BP (Before Present). During this time, the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration has varied by volume between 180 – 210 ppm during ice ages, increasing to 280 – 300 ppm during warmer interglacials…
… On longer timescales, various proxy measurements have been used to attempt to determine atmospheric carbon dioxide levels millions of years in the past. These include boron and carbon isotope ratios in certain types of marine sediments, and the number of stomata observed on fossil plant leaves. While these measurements give much less precise estimates of carbon dioxide concentration than ice cores, there is evidence for very high CO2 volume concentrations between 200 and 150 myr BP of over 3,000 ppm and between 600 and 400 myr BP of over 6,000 ppm.”
Questions and meanderings:
According to para.1 above:
During Ice ages, does almost all plant life die out as a result of some combination of lower temperatures and CO2 levels that fell below 200ppm (para. 2 above)? If not, why not?
Does this (possible) loss of plant life have anything to do with rebounding of atmospheric CO2 levels as the world exits the Ice Age (in combination with other factors such as ocean exsolution)? Could this contribute to the observed asymmetry?
When all life on Earth comes to an end, will it be because CO2 permanently falls below 200ppm as it is permanently sequestered in carbonate rocks, hydrocarbons, coals, etc.?
Since life on Earth is likely to end due to a lack of CO2, should we be paying energy companies to burn fossil fuels to increase atmospheric CO2, instead of fining them due to the false belief that they cause global warming?
Could T.S. Eliot have been thinking about CO2 starvation when he wrote:
“This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.”
Regards, Allan 🙂
P.S.
A possible explanation is that ice core CO2 is directionally correct but low in absolute terms due to CO2 diffusion.
Leaf stomata data shows much higher CO2 values – up to 60ppm higher for peaks and 30-40 ppm on average.
See Fig. 2 at http://www.pnas.org/content/99/19/12011.full.pdf
Allan MacRae says:
May 13, 2012 at 8:21 pm
Plant food for thought….
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The very low levels of CO2 in the ice cores vs plant need for CO2 is why I am inclined to believe Jaworowski and Segalstad.
If you want a real scare the low levels of CO2 combined with the Milanchovitch cycles are a heck of a lot scarier. (Cold water sucks up CO2) The overall temperatures for the Holecene show we are in an overall cooling trend and the geologic record shows that plants and other sequestering mechanisms are gradually using up all the available CO2 in the atmosphere.
As you said a world ending on a whimper.
Gail Combs says: May 13, 2012 at 8:56 pm
Jaworowski (2004 US Senate)
http://www.john-daly.com/zjiceco2.htm
Jaworowski, Z., T.V. Segalstad, and N. Ono (1992)
http://www.co2web.info/stoten92.pdf
Thank you Gail – the Siple Curve is just more data fabrication, isn’t it.
God – everywhere you look in climate science you find another great steaming pile of BS.
They must have taken some energy policy advice from Obama to get this far in the policy swamp. Time to reap the whirlwind.
neill says:
May 12, 2012 at 9:00 am
Something really, really bad is going to have to happen first. The Warmists are blind to the disaster they are building toward. Let’s pray that when it happens it doesn’t take the global economy down with it.
Uhhh..where have you been the last four years?
Jean Demesure says:
Maurice Strong, U.N. environmental leader and IPCC creator: “Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?”
Please provide a reference for that!
TonyG says: @ May 14, 2012 at 9:53 am
Please provide a reference for that!
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Maurice Strong quoted from the September 1, 1997 edition of National Review magazine.
There were similar references by him.
at the 1992 Earth Summit. … Frankly, we may get to the point where the only way of saving the world will be for industrial civilization to collapse… http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/sociopol_tavistock04b.htm
Also at the opening session of the 1992 Earth Summit he said the first world
“….developed and benefited from the unsustainable patterns of production and consumption which have produced our present dilemma. It is clear that current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class — involving high meat intake, consumption of large amounts of frozen and convenience foods, use of fossil fuels, appliances, home and work-place air-conditioning, and suburban housing — are not sustainable. A shift is necessary toward lifestyles less geared to environmentally damaging consumption patterns…..”
A look at Agenda 21 show Strong is not kidding around about this. A collapse of the USA and the first world is necessary to have people accept the rearrangement of their lives. See: http://www.democratsagainstunagenda21.com/ and her video at the bottom of the page (first one)
It all sounds like a tin hat conspiracy theory until you read the documents and follow the events taking place.
Here are the actual documents.
World Bank Document on Livestock: http://www-wds.worldbank.org/servlet/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2010/01/13/000158349_20100113084444/Rendered/PDF/WPS5178.pdf
(b) To establish agricultural planning bodies at national and local levels to decide priorities, channel resources and implement programmes.
alcheson says:
RIght now there will be two mulit-billion dollar referendums on the ballot this fall to raise taxes, both sales and income and they both have a chance of passing.
Can you point me to some more info on that? I couldn’t find anything (mostly got articles about Amazon supporting a sales tax referendum, but that was from 2011)
Many Thanks, Gail!