Via The GWPF
Energy bills will soar as green policies shut coal-fired power stations and cause an “electricity supply crisis”, experts say. Prices will be forced up as the UK has to import more power, according to a report by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers today. –Craig Woodhouse, The Sun, 26 January 2016
The UK is heading for a severe electricity supply crisis by 2025, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IME) is warning today. IME, which has more than 112,000 members in 140 countries says the closure of coal and nuclear plants would lead to a 40-55% shortfall amid growing demand. And the group’s new report – Engineering the UK Electricity Gap – also says plans to plug the gap by building combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) plants are unrealistic as the UK would need about 30 of them in less than 10 years. IME head of energy and environment Jenifercorr Baxter, lead author of the document, said: “The UK is facing an electricity supply crisis. As the UK population rises and with the greater use of electricity use in transport and heating, it looks almost certain that electricity demand is going to rise.” –Keith Findlay, Energy Voice, 26 January 2016
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But, but,but we gave Ed Davey a knighthood. This cannot possibly be.
Numpty Lib-Dem child who ‘ran’ (carried the can for the Tories) the Department for Climate Change
Plus, you won’t need much energy after we fix the broken climate and weather goes back to being a perfect 23 degrees every day.
RW
23
C
or
F . . .
I fear the next Little Ice Age . . . .
Auto
K
You try to solve a non-existent problem by replacing reliable coal/gas powered electric generation with an energy source that works 30% of the time and you come up with a crisis. Well duh!
What do you mean? They are firing half of Drax with wood chips carted across the Atlantic in ships that (gasp!!) burn oil to get places.
Nothing against wood chips. My pellet insert in my fireplace is nice. I get the fire in the fireplace, the dog loves it, and my wife does not complain about smoke. But generating electricity is quite another matter.
Christopher Booker pointed out in last Sundays Telegraph that on Tuesday 19th Jan when temperatures were in minus degree C for parts of the UK wind power was supplying a whole 0.1% of grid loading that is 5,500 windmills producing a whopping 66 MW. I do wonder what the nameplate output of those windmills is just to show how useless they are?
James Bull
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_the_United_Kingdom
This is for James Bull. The above is the reference you are looking for and it lists 13.1 GW name plate capacity, that is as of August 2015. If you go to http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk site you will find the latest info on what is actually being provided to the net and it is brought up to date every five minutes. If you are interested, the data goes back as far as 2011 so it is well worth looking at. That 13.1GW has probably been overtaken by now and it could be somewhere in the region of 13.4 or so GW but I have no way of knowing for sure.
Gus
Gus, that’s an amazing site. Britain gets 20% of its power from nuclear. I would have guessed less. Wind generates it looks on average about 2-3GW of the 40GW demand. So, you’d need 15 times as many wind generators to replace all but as you know that wouldn’t work. Thanks for the site. I wonder if the US has any site that is comparable or even states or regions.
..Gee, who didn’t see that coming ???
+1
Re: Green Isn’t Working 1/26/16
Of course it’s working!
1. Environmentalism has replaced science in K-12. Most university physical science departments are Post Modern (“Publish or Perish”) and thriving on government grants.
2. Commerce and the Standard of Living in the West show marked downward trends. The US Democrat Party is admitting to being socialistic.
3. The World is being saved from AGW, though the results aren’t scheduled during our lifetimes.
results aren’t scheduled during our lifetimes.
========================
I have a great deal on corporate bonds. They accrue 10% compounded annually, payable at maturity in 100 years. The IPCC guarantees the return.
Make them payable on demand and then you can link to the prospectus, s’il vous plait.
“admitting to being socialistic”?
Heck, they proclaim it proudly.
Building a road is socialistic,I don’t think you know what socialism means.
Socilaism and socialistic are two entirely different concepts as are communist and communistic
Socialism is simply the belief that man doesn’t have the right to live for his own sake.
snopercod, you do realise that the logical corollary of that is that the Government has the right to tell you how to live?
It does to a degree, we need that to have a society but it’s generally limited by Constitutions and Bills of Rights. socialism theory says that the right of the government to intrude into all facets of a personal life should not be impeded. There’s the rub. 😉
@Snoper:
Like liberal NYC charging ~$13 for a pack of cigarettes, attempting to limiting soda size and also strict rules on self defense to avoid a felony (excepting the police dept.where NO rules apply). Sounds like the the perfect place for leftists.
Though on the contrary, snopercod, everyone does have the right to live their life for their own sake.
It’s just that in an Enlightenment society like ours, everyone’s sake is co-equal. No one can live their life at the sake of someone else.
Socialism’s basic premise is that the value of anyone’s life is found only its contribution to the social good. No individual life has value in and of itself.
And the social good is set by an agreed ideology. Socialism is also vitally interested in preserving its own status quo. It is therefore and necessarily hostile to creative thinkers. All of that makes polities organized around socialism destined to failure.
No matter all the fine phrases about social and economic justice, socialism is about tyranny and is a recipe for intolerance.
Pat Frank:
You mistakenly claim
On WUWT the most intolerant views by far are made by members of the American ultra-right.
Richard
Re: Green↓ 1/26/16 @ur momisugly 5:03pm:
Sun Spot, 1/26/16 @ur momisugly 11:15 am, blurted this: Building a road is socialistic, I don’t think you know what socialism means. [76 characters]
Stephen Richards 16 minutes later wasted 18 more characters to tweet this claim: Socialism and socialistic are two entirely different concepts as are communist and communistic
Dictionary.com says: socialistic; adjective: 1. of or relating to socialists or socialism. 2. in accordance with socialism. 3. advocating or supporting socialism.
where socialism: noun: 1. a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.
Dictionary.com is a personal go-to dictionary, but it, too, could be improved. [C]apital, land is redundant, and the etc. is purely superfluous, based on its definitions of capital and wealth.
The definition of socialism by Prof. Reisman is not much different, except that he inexplicably – for an economist — leaves out the means of distribution. Capitalism, pp. 264, 267. The definition of the term from the other side, i.e., by Marxists, is truly peculiar, including this, buried in the usual verbiage:
The organisation of society in such a manner that the exploitation by one person of the labour of his neighbour would be impossible, and where everyone will be allowed to enjoy the social wealth only to the extent of their contribution to the production of that wealth. marxists.org/glossary.
(a) Read with the Marxist definition of exploitation, the definition is circular, and (b) it ignores the basic tenets of ownership to attack the free market concepts of rent, salary, and interest. It’s no different than the Marxist rule: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs. Id., Planned Economy.
So for Mr. Spot: Sun, how do you reckon that building a road an example of socialism, even if done by a government? In that way you proved that it is you, not I, that doesn’t know what socialism means. If you have a definition that supports your meaning, please quote it.
For Mr. Richards, how is socialistic an entirely different concept from socialism when the former is, by definition, related to the latter?
About the Democrat party coming to admit to being socialistic, MarkW at 10:40 am said, Heck, they proclaim it proudly. Some do, some don’t. Bernie Sanders openly calls himself a socialist, then tries to walk it back by explaining that he is actually only a democratic socialist. Hillary counters that her idea is only to reign in capitalism, not replace it. At the same time, she defends her party’s nationalization of health insurance and the taking of General Motors from public ownership, only to give it to the union, which is a thin distinction from the Democrat Party. They are progressives, especially in the sense that they are progressively incorporating the tenets of socialism. No Democrat yet proclaims that the party is socialistic.
Tweeting comments is like posting bumper stickers. Like most campaigns for President: top of the head, slogans, reflexive, conditioned responses. Like things politically correct, guaranteed at the outset — by definition — to be shallow, and, thus, unsupportable. Wrong-headed, if not just wrong.
Re: Green↓ 1/26/16 @ur momisugly 5:03pm:
Sun Spot, 1/26/16 @ur momisugly 11:15 am, blurted this: Building a road is socialistic, I don’t think you know what socialism means. [76 characters]
Stephen Richards 16 minutes later wasted 18 more characters to tweet this claim: Socialism and socialistic are two entirely different concepts as are communist and communistic
Dictionary.com says: socialistic; adjective: 1. of or relating to socialists or socialism. 2. in accordance with socialism. 3. advocating or supporting socialism.
where socialism: noun: 1. a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.
Dictionary.com is a personal go-to dictionary, but it, too, could be improved. [C]apital, land is redundant, and the etc. is purely superfluous, based on its definitions of capital and wealth.
The definition of socialism by Prof. Reisman is not much different, except that he inexplicably – for an economist — leaves out the means of distribution. Capitalism, pp. 264, 267. The definition of the term from the other side, i.e., by Marxists, is truly peculiar, including this, buried in the usual verbiage:
The organisation of society in such a manner that the exploitation by one person of the labour of his neighbour would be impossible, and where everyone will be allowed to enjoy the social wealth only to the extent of their contribution to the production of that wealth. marxists.org/glossary.
(a) Read with the Marxist definition of exploitation, the definition is circular, and (b) it ignores the basic tenets of ownership to attack the free market concepts of rent, salary, and interest. It’s no different than the Marxist rule: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs. Id., Planned Economy.
So for Mr. Spot: Sun, how do you reckon that building a road an example of socialism, even if done by a government? In that way you showed that it you are the one who doesn’t know what socialism means. But if you have a definition that supports your meaning, please quote it.
For Mr. Richards, how can socialistic be an entirely different concept from socialism when socialistic, by definition, refers to socialism?
About the Democrat party coming to admit to being socialistic, MarkW at 10:40 am said, Heck, they proclaim it proudly. Some do, some don’t. Candidate A openly calls himself a socialist, then tries to walk it back by explaining that he is actually only a democratic socialist. Candidate B counters that the policy is only to reign in capitalism, not replace it. At the same time, B defends the party’s nationalization of health insurance and the taking of General Motors from public ownership, only to give it to the union, which is a thin distinction from the Democrat Party. They are progressives, especially in the sense that they are progressively incorporating the tenets of socialism. No Democrat yet proclaims that the party is socialistic.
Tweeting comments is like posting bumper stickers. Like most campaigns for President: top of the head, slogans, reflexive, conditioned responses. Like things politically correct, guaranteed at the outset — by definition — to be shallow, and, thus, unsupportable. Wrong-headed, if not wrong.
I’ve no way of knowing the political views of WUWT commenters, Richard, and don’t see in any case how individual behavior impacts a general point of political philosophy. On the other hand, the 20th century history of oppressive and murderous polities bears me out.
If you don’t believe that man has a right to live for his own sake, then you are advocating slavery.
Pat Frank:
In response to my saying
You say
You only have to read what people write on WUWT to know “their political views”; e.g. only the rabid right tries to pretend naz1s were and are left wing.
And your opinion of “20th century history of oppressive and murderous polities” is wrong: the extreme right (naz1s) and extreme left (communists) provided “oppressive and murderous polities” but not socialism.
Richard
Perhaps Jerry Pournelle’s two, rather than one, dimensional chart on political philosophy would be better. I am bad enough at computers to not know how to provide a link, but it is something that pops up when you google Pournelle.
One has to remember that the courtneys use circular reasoning.
Anything bad, is from the right, therefore anyone who says something they don’t like is not just a rightist, but an ultra-rightist.
Sorry Richard, it is you socialist who proclaim the right to force others to live the way you want them to live, which is by definition tyrannical.
According to Richard, the national socialists weren’t socialists, despite the fact that their party platform was full of socialism.
The reason for this is simple, the national socialists were bad guys, which proves that they were right wing.
MarkW:
This is the second thread where during the last 24 hours you have posted blatant falsehoods about “the courtneys”.
You lie
I don’t know any “courtneys” who have ever claimed “Anything bad, is from the right,” and you don’t provide a citation because you know you are presenting a fabrication. Your accusation of “circular reasoning” is based on your fabrication.
I don’t “proclaim the right to force others to live the way {i} want them to live”. In fact, the opposite. I proclaim socialism which attempts to give everyone the ability to live the way they each individually want to live. You know your lie is blatantly untrue because I have repeatedly referred you to what I do “proclaim” which is on WUWT here.
You neo-naz1s advocate tyranny. And you try to excuse it with this nonsense
NO! National Socialists (i.e. naz1s) were and are fascists. And by definition, fascists are right wing. They not only did NOT have a “party platform {that} was full of socialism”, they rounded up socialists and tried to exterminate them.
As the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) defines fascism is
and the OED also informs
As I said to Pat Frank,
Richard
Richard, I refer you to James Gregor’s “The Faces of Janus,” which demonstrates beyond rational doubt that fascism (and thus Nazism) derived directly from Marxism. I.e., both are what you would call left wing.
A more popular treatment is Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism,” which establishes the same point. “Liberal” is US-speak for what you might call a social democrat.
Communism is merely socialism taken to its necessary conclusion.
“Social Democracy” is a contradiction in terms, by the way, because socialism is structurally hostile to being voted out of power.Richard, I refer you to James Gregor’s “The Faces of Janus,” which demonstrates beyond rational doubt that fascism (and thus Nazism) derived directly from Marxism. I.e., both are what you would call left wing.
A more popular treatment is Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism,” which establishes the same point. “Liberal” is US-speak for what you might call a social democrat.
Communism is merely socialism taken to its necessary conclusion.
“Social Democracy” is a contradiction in terms, by the way, because socialism is structurally hostile to being voted out of power.
Socialism is a very good system but it only applies to me as an individual and not you lot as a socialistic group. It’s why only I understand socialism well enough to be the Fearless Leader while the relatives and mates handle the Great Leap Forward under my watchful eye. Socialistically speaking I’m not into windmills but the nephew is big time so there must be a lot in it you don’t see.
So if Britain needs to import more electricity, are the various trans-Channel feeders large enough to handle the future power flux?
No, they are not.
http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/
No and the one to France is likely to work the other way as they replace Nuclear with Wind, ROFL, another country to destroy a world class leading Generation system on the say so of Greens and the CAGW myth.
You couldn’t have made it up 50 years ago, oh come to think of it the book 1984 got quite close to this sort of madness.
Mr Orwell absolutely nailed it. Animal farm 2016.
Regarding “and the one to France is likely to work the other way as they replace Nuclear with Wind, ROFL, another country to destroy a world class leading Generation system on the say so of Greens and the CAGW myth”:
I ask: How is dismantling nuclear power generation supposed to reduce CAGW? Why should ones who think CAGW is such a great problem oppose nuclear power?
If the price goes high enough there will be no supply problem. people will simply not be able to afford electricity. coal should be pretty cheap and plentiful to fill the gap. nothing like a smoldering bucket of coal in every room to keep the house toasty.
Quite true. But a fireplace is required to burn this coal and they went out of the window with all the clean air acts years ago. People in the UK could sit around a coal fire in the back yard but the constant rain would keep putting the fire out!
That is their plan. Added to installing ‘smart’ meters to be able to cut you off in times of peak demand, make you pay more during peak demand and show you just how eye-watering your bill is in real time. And of course we will all be disconnected from the gas grid and forced to use electric heating – glad I have an open fire.
Definitely not. Add to that the the socialists in france have announced that they intend to close 50% of their nuclear power (not power stations) and put 7.000.000 recharge sockets along the roads and you have a situation where we will not have any power to give to the UK, Italy, Germany, Belgium, Holland, Spain and other border eu countries;
The future is green. The future is black ….. outs.
About 80% of French power is nuclear.
http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/france/
This will go as far as the Greens can push it in France, then the guillotines will be dusted off.
No no.. I am sure the vernacular used in South Africa for blackouts will become popular here too.. ie “Load Shedding”
DJ: There is nothing wrong with the European dream. Power will be assured. Anyone travelling from the Continent to the UK will be forced (by the Commissars of the EU) to carry a 12-volt battery with them. At the last count*, 20 Million passengers were carried on Channel ferries ( a low count over time). That’s a lot of power they plan to be imported. /s
*see here.
BTW: What a great heading pic. I’ve already sent it on to my sceptic list.
I like it too, but it would work even better if you put a few people in Nazi concentration camp style uniforms on the other side, looking out forlornly.
D. J. Hawkins:
You ask
The approval process for three additional interconnectors is underway and they would enable 3.4GW of additional electricity imports.
(Ofgem is the government regulator for gas and electricity markets in Great Britain.)
Richard
I looked at the ETYS for 2015, and the lowest growth calls for an increase in installed capacity of 10 GW by about 2023 or so. So the answer, in short, is “no”, especially if they shut down nuclear (8 GW) any time soon.
Laughably, the ETYS claims the largest growth of installed capacity and demand under the “Gone Green” transmission scenario. How people will afford that energy is a bit of a mystery.
So the U.K energy crisis has now been moved from 2015/16 to 2025?
There is nothing like failure to convince people.
Given that even if you were to believe the antiscientific IPCC fantasies, there exists precisely zero chance of making any difference whatsoever to World co2 levels by implementing green policies in the UK. Therefore it is clear that our old Etonian half-witted political class would prefer to cut the throat of every man woman and child in the Country rather than be seen to be not properly aligned with the currently fashionable western suicide pact.
I don’t think that the Institute of Mechanical Engineers is concerned about the lights going out, it has been taken over by the Green Blob, and is concerned that the lights will stay on via a continuation of coal-fired electricity. They are “low-carbon” advocates agitating for tax and bill payers money (which they laughingly refer to as “investment”) to make their dream come true, via storage and demand reduction and other wacky ideas.
They think/hope that electricity demand will grow due to electric cars and heating, in reality demand may not rise at all due to ever increasing prices and failure of these “green” technologies.
Sorry, I know the lead author is a greenie, but the are advocating Gas Generation powered by Fracked Gas and efficiencies, not more Wind or Solar.
Although they do not condemn Wind or Solar as they should.
“Aegent Energy Advisors has a published a handy guide to the rate impact of conservation here. As Aegent explains, the arithmetic driving electricity rates in Ontario can be summarized as: rising total cost, divided by static or falling energy sales, equals higher rates.”
http://www.tomadamsenergy.com/2014/10/27/crock-of-conservation/
Efficiency (which reduces demand) is usually cheaper than extra capacity. It’s not so wacky. On the other hand, we’ve been working on efficiency since the 1970s. I’m not sure how much of the low-hanging fruit has been picked.
The local city is installing LED street lights. The payback is less than five years. I was surprised. High pressure sodium lights are already pretty efficient. LEDs are enough better to make them worthwhile.
I’ve made the comment before but it bears repeating: if I had followed the government advice to “turn the thermostat down 1°” every time they ran an energy efficiency campaign I would have died of hypothermia years ago.
Increased efficiency actually promotes greater use of a commodity, because the reduced cost of use opens up more applications for use.
@Newminster: My Brother-in-law is as tight as a duck’s anus. He will not switch on his CH until November, and even then, he sets the thermostat very low. I once asked him, “Why?”. “To keep my bills down.”, he replied. So, I said, you get no benefit from your heating yet you still pay for it. Duh!
This is my “bad wine philosophy”: You can buy a bad bottle of wine in a restaurant for £15 (say – ymmv), but a good bottle could cost £25. So, you could have had crap for £15, or great for £25. So the pleasure you got from a bottle cost you £10.
He never understood that and continued to pay the power company for energy that never heated his house.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/01/26/britain-faces-energy-crisis-engineers-warn-green-isnt-working/comment-page-1/#comment-2130237
I see plenty of efficiency improvements still being available, mostly a large number of small ones that add up to a lot. Most LED indicator lights (along with their associated dropping resistors and their share of losses in switching and power supply circuits) use about 10-20 times as much power as LEDs that cost only a few cents more. Incandescent holiday lights still have some popularity and can now be replaced by LED ones that use about 1/10 as much power. Many houses can be improved thermally, especially with their windows and window treatments. People can “dress for the weather” more when indoors, which reduces need for climate control. Especially in cooler weather – which means reducing workload for refrigerators. There is still incandescent lighting in use, and their electric heat generally costs more than heat from electric heat pumps or fossil fuels – and is counterproductive when and where air conditioning is used. Also, many electronic devices can have their power supply circuits consuming around .25 to 1 watt less power with a cost increase of less than a dollar.
commieBob:
You say
Sorry, but no: increased efficiency usually increases demand. It seems you are not aware of the Jevons Paradox which has been known since the nineteenth century.
The Jevons Paradox is that when technological progress increases the efficiency with which a resource is used (reducing the amount necessary for any one use), the rate of consumption of that resource rises because of increasing demand.
To illustrate this paradox in mundane terms, when energy efficiency reduces a person’s fuel bills then he has more money available to enable him to e.g. fly to a Weekend City Break.
Richard
That’s the rub, the low-hanging fruit was taken down a long time ago, and now the improvements are uphill all the way. Lights are a good spot for improvement, especially with LEDs dropping in price, but they account for a small fraction of our energy expenses, which are primarily caused by heating, cooling, and appliances.
The Institute of Engineering & Technology spouts green drivel these days. If their magazine fell out of the Guardian (currently losing £50m a year -yippee) you wouldn’t be surprised. I was shocked just how bad it had got when I found a 10 year old copy of Engineering & Technology and there was lots of interesting articles. Now there are hardly any worth reading. Like other institutions, I don’t recall a members’ vote on become green blob fans.
“I don’t think the Institute of Mechanical Engineers is concerned about the lights going out…”
I read the report and I was surprised that it contained some observations, conclusions and recommendations but no analysis to back any of this up. The report does not question the merits of the U.K.”s stated intention to reduce GHG emissions sharply or to phase out coal-fired generation by 2025. It suggests that adding natural gas fired plants will not address the supply “gap”, and therefore frets about higher imports, higher electricity rates and reduced security of supply, while expressing a rather simple faith that research into storage and process efficiency will somehow result in lower demand. Overall, it is not a very persuasive report.
The citizens are revolting.
I think the politicians are even more revolting.
Damn near as revolting as the presstitutes.
They whitewashed the practicalities of green and now things look black.
I am far from a scientist but only common sense engineer who was in sales most of my life, and not counting Puff,s on a resistor. Thanks Eng., UK
You might be a technician. Engineers are scientists with creativity.
Buy Honda generator futures.
Buy a Honda generator. I’ve got a very nice 1kW one, fully Euro compliant.
I have a nice 2.8kW Honda LPG generator.
For less than $600 there are 7kW (8.8kW peak) generators available.
Harbor Freight always has them. It’s a good starting point to compare prices.
That is impressive…you can power a toaster – what more do you need in the new era of darkness?
pyeatte,
I assume your reply is to NS. If so, I agree. Even a 7 kW generator isn’t really enough to reliably power an average house. But it’s enough to get by temporarily (up to a week or so).
For a reliable power source, a 13 kW generator is pretty good. But it costs 3X more, and you have to stockpile more fuel. So it’s a cost/benefit trade-off.
In the event you need one, having PB’s 2.8 kW gen, or even NS’ 1 kW, is infinitely better than having nothing. At least 2.8 kW would keep your refrigerator going. But if you want to keep a reefer plus all lights, a washer, microwave, freezer, internet, etc., running, a 7 kW could do it if you were careful to not use the output in parallel.
My dream home would have rooftop solar with plenty of battery storage, a 13 kW generator that runs on either natgas, gas (petrol), or propane, a week or two food supply, and an army surplus tank to hide in. Just in case. Don’t look at me that way…
instead of one 13kW generator, a pair of 7kW ones for redundancy.
it’s cheaper, too.
Get 3 x 7kW.
Enough redundancy for basic maintenance, plus you use the fuel you need, whether you have 2 or 3 – or 4.
Oh, and make sure you have necessary consumable spares, at least, plus tools.
And always disconnect before fiddling . . . . . .
Auto
gnomish & Auto,
Good suggestions. If/when they’re needed you can score major points by being a good neighbor, either by providing a supply of electricity, or loaning a generator.
One point which should be made public about renewables is the measures being put in place to cover the time when either the wind is not blowing or the sun is not shining. As coal power stations are decomissioned (Longannet and Cockenzie in Scotland to name but two) there is no longer the generating capacity to serve the load during the absence of wind or sun. The solution being rolled out across the country is the installation of large numbers of diesel generator sets. These are being installed in batches of 200 Units at a time and contracts are being awarded to the major generator manufacturers. However, these generators are only Tier 1 sets which means that the exhaust gases leave the engine and go straight out to atmosphere via the silencer. There is no form of treatment like a catalyst or DPF filter for example. Each set is 3.5MW so 200 units add up to 700MW. A 2 litre car would put out approx 100kW so this is equivalent to 7000 cars running at full throttle but with no form of emissions control. There are at least 2 batches of these 200 units already installed of which I am aware and another 200 have just been ordered. This is just from one company. This must be being repeated all over the country.
Therefore, we have an insane position where we have self-righteous people driving electric vehicles, charging them from the mains, with the electricity having been generated by a diesel engine with no emissions control and then having the audacity to adopt the moral high ground.
As the saying goes, you just couldn’t make this up.
Norrie that is a great story. Diesel to make electricity to feed into a distribution network to charge cars to drive on roads, recharge at work, to drive home, to save CO2 emissions from diesel fuel. The system efficiency of that must be below 10%.
Imagine how much it would cost to make that whole system using electricity from windmills and solar panels. Even at its present very high cost, that is only possible because the greater portion of the energy that went into constructing it was produced by cheap coal and nuclear and hydro. As soon as the entire manufacturing base plugs into these boondoggles, the price of everything will shoot up.
The conversations and comments at WUWT are priceless!!!
Oh, I thought advocacy groups and politicians ran the grid and did all of the planning for it.
And this is the country that produced James Clerk Maxwell? Well, it’s back to the country that allowed ether theory enforcers to rule science.
Today they won’t listen to the Engineers, tomorrow they will blame the Engineers.
Denmark got 42% of their electricity from wind last year. On many days they were exporting electricity. Maybe they can sell some to Britain…
Only if they subsidise it, like Germany’s exports into the Central European Grid. It is ‘cheaper than coal’ power because it is heavily subsidised, otherwise known as dumping. The WTO is getting involved…
This was achieved mostly by load reduction, not increased supply. Over the past decade, Denmark’s electricity demand has shrunk by about one-third. Most of this was lost industrial load.
First, Denmark has the highest electricity rates in the EU, so if it supplies Britain, British rates will have to go up to pay for it.
Second, it’s not clear to me that de-industrialization caused by excessively high electricity costs is a particularly useful route to follow.
Norwegian companies Statnett/Statkraft will build a 1400 MW (10 TWh) cable to England payed 50% by Norway, exporting our precious green hydropower that could have been used by our own industry. Cost estimate 20000 million NOK (over 2000 mill euro/dollars). It could help the poor Brits.
Too little, too late, and too expensive. 1.4 GW of CCGT would cost about $1.5 billion and could be in place in two years (existing site) or three years (greenfield site). FLP tore down two ~1 GW 1960s fuel oil boiler plants and is replacing them with two 1.2GW CCGT. Total construction time including demolition 2.5 years. Longest lead item is gas pipeline capacity. One two sites is harborside Fort Lauderdale near the airport if any vacationers want have a look on yheirmwaymto beaches or cruise ships. Operational end of this year.
Irsching may have a couple of CCGT generators going cheap 😉
And Florida Power and Light have lowered some electricity rates (http://miami.cbslocal.com/2015/04/16/florida-power-light-customer-rates-will-go-down-in-may/ ) .
Try to get planning permission in UK for any new power station inside 10 years. Although of course fields of standby diesel generators for STOR get a pass.
The real UK electricity crisis will come much sooner, good chance this winter or next. This report speaks to overall UK capacity. But the key to reliable electricity is peak capacity at peak demand. Thanks to planned closures of old coal and CCGT, the National Grid reserve margin is at best 5% this winter including all the payments to big industrial consumers to curtail if nesessary. Normal ‘safe’ grid reserve margin is about twice that. And UK wind penetration is now 10% on average of production.
The great North American blackout of August 14, 2003 was caused by a single generator near Cleveland tripping off (mechanical issues) with the NE NA grid running close to capacity (AC load) at about 1330. By 1630, 252 generating stations had automatically tripped off to protect from overload damage and ~85 million people were dark, including NYC and Toronto. It took nearly 5 days to fully restore the grid.
UK gets a cold blocking high in January or February (as they often do) wind generation goes to near zero, and UK goes dark if anything happens to the rest of generation. Because of lack of investment (no return given wind subsidies and UK climate change act), most of that base is old. In the past 18 months a fire, mechanical issues, and a nuclear safety question forced several big generating units to shut, one permanently, the others for months. Just one or two more such inevitable incidents and UK goes dark in the dead of winter.
A multiday NA blackout in August is uncomfortable and inconvenient. A multiday UK winter blackout (peak UK demand is about 6pm during winter months) is deadly. UK is playing Russian roulette with more than one revolver chamber loaded.
In the US the Supreme Court just overruled a lower court decision which had ruled against a FERC proposal that would force utilities to pay large users to reduce their load at peak times. So consumers in the US can look forward to eventually paying the extra costs this ruling will engender.
Would be interesting to see curtailment statistics over last 10-20 yrs.
There’s a simple solution.
Just have all industry leave Britain, then supply will be able to meet demand.
They’re working on that, but they will run out of large industrial users.
And when the industrial users are not there to artificially ‘boost supply’ by cutting their own demand, then the problem will be even worse for the remaining users. Those are users are far more numerous and also have a vote when the election comes…
They may have a vote, but who are they going to vote for? The alternative is as bad – or worse.
David,
Unhappily, I think you are right.
We need to step back from sloganeering and jargonautical phrases.
What works?
Short and medium term – Coal, for base load.
Nuclear – why did the UK throw away competence . . . .?
This closing coal-fired stations will kill thousands if not stopped.
Will Miliband, Davey and Rudd be prosecuted for – at least – manslaughter?
Auto – an enquiring mind.
And what of their Lilywhite, sea-green incorruptible Prime Ministers?
[Don’t know if this snares Tony B. Liar . . . .]
Of course, some of us have been warning about this for years.
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2016/01/20/wind-power-down-to-0-1/
Most of those closures should have been replaced with CCGT, Paul. Neither of the two proposed UK CCGT stations has even been started due to unfavorable economics (wind feed in priority). And two is insufficient.
Buy a decent backup generator if you can. Suggest a spark ignited diesel (runs off natural gas and avoids fuel hassle/limited capacity) if you have gas. That is what our building has as hurricane emergency service insurance. A big one (almost 200 kw). Is test run every other day for an hour, and is on test as I peck at this iPad.
ristvan,
Make sure they run it at absolute peak demand for a while. Start up and run for fun every once in a while leaves potential bugs unaccounted for.
Your schedule shows 6,098 MW to shut down in March — within the next 65 days. You’d think at a minimum they’d put off the closures until April/May just to make sure of getting through the winter.
If those close in May 2016, what about next winter? It still takes a minimum of 2-3 years to put new CCGT capacity in place. You cannot just go down to the local shop and pick one up.
I thought IMechE was the Great Britain equivalent of ASME.
ASME seems very open-minded, judging by its newsletters, which include some articles found on wuwt. The UK version (IMechE) was once a respectable professional body, but now seems to be skimming some money off for green political advocacy.
climanrecon, good point
The articles on the ASME Environmental news letter are often mostly from wuwt, and as a retired member of ASME I send many wuwt and others that end up getting included in the newsletter. It is mostly articles of skeptical viewpoint. I am not sure about the rest of ASME as every organization in the US has been corrupted by CAGW. Certainly 90% of the Engineers I have contact with have become skeptics when you show them the data, thank you Anthony. Given the government $$$ and political pressures, it is tough for industry and professional engineering organizations to NOT play ball because of the negative consequences .
The British Government will force the introduction of Smart Metering well before they change course on building new energy infrastructure.
Maximising the potential to gather income far outweighs any commitments they may feel they have to public energy security.
I think GWPF is twisting this a bit.
The nuclear and coal plants are been closed because of end of life nothing to do with any green targets. The problem is successive governments have simple done nothing to put in place a plan to replace them.
If the government were going to replace them all with wind then GWPF could argue against that. The problem is they aren’t doing anything To replace them green, fossil fuel or nuclear to replace them. Well I guess in a way it is ‘green’ if there is no electricity. That will certainly lower emissions.
“End of life” is more of a political convenience and talking point than a technical one. It becomes more of a gray line of comparison when considering re-investment and refurbishing vs. all new and full-scale experimental projects that only produce red ink in place of power. See CSP solar projects in the U.S. and Australia and clean coal power plant projects in the U.S. Bottom line is that some of these things don’t work on a massive scale. The old assumptions that large scale projects were only undertaken with proven technologies and systems do not necessarily hold true in an era with overzealous political pressure and major subsidy promises.
Great observation.
Resourceguy,
Great point!!
I don’t work on power plants, but know full well in other Energy Processing industries that plant life can often be extended indefinitely unless the technology is totally outdated. I have worked on plants that were built during WW 2 and they still compete with new plants. Of course there is replacement and repair of certain components and occasional technology upgrading which is much cheaper than building a new plant. The biggest expense is complying with all the latest environmental regulations which the new plants also have to consider. Pressure vessels, pipes, storage tanks and pumps do not loose their ability to perform unless they are neglected or corrosion issues are ignored.
End of Life of an entire plant is just another lie from the left.
Hunterston B was originally planned to operate until 2011. In 2007 planned operation was extended by 5 years to 2016.[9] In December 2012 EDF said it could (technically and economically) operate until 2023.[10] (Wikipedia)
May not have explained that well.
I mean these were planned closures and the government have had decades to do something about it Blaming this on ‘green legislation’ is letting them of the hook for their incompetence. They could have commission new nuclear or combined gas but they’ve done nothing and no we face a crisis.
Who introduced the green legislation? A bunch of PPE grads from Oxford. A truly terrifying list.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_University_of_Oxford_people_with_PPE_degrees
Just noticed that the list of Oxford PPE grads includes Steve McIntyre so aplogies to him, there is one name that isn’t terrifying (no pun intended!).
The coal plants are being closed due to the EU Large Combustion Plants Directive to prevent ‘Acid Rain’ – a previous non-problem, but that will not prevent the EUrocrats from closing them down as they have no concern for people dying of cold in energy poverty. So not end of life, Drax is nowhere near end of life, which is why it is being re-engineered for totally inefficient woodchips, if not woodchips – and there is now an argument on whether they are ‘renewables’ – then Drax will be shut down.
Make sure the people know it is the politicians who have done this to you. Vote out the scum, and replace with level-headed thinkers – not Marxists.
That would work, if democracy let you ‘vote out the scum’. In reality, you can only vote in some other scum to replace them.
Maybe when the AGW theory is disproved by entry into another LIA by 2020 there will be demand for coal power again.
But the people in charge are determined to cut the UK population by 70% through energy starvation; Agenda21.
The US population cull is to be 45%: http://populationmatters.org/resources/articles-reports-papers/population/
An energy crisis created by the same people who created an emigration crisis.