From the GWPF, a collection of headlines:
Across the world, unsustainable subsidies for wind and solar are being cut back.—Lawrence Solomon, – Financial Post, 3 December 2010
The French government is planning to suspend feed-in tariffs for new photovoltaic installations above a capacity of 3 kilowatt hours for a period of four months, according to a draft decree discussed at a government meeting on Thursday. –-ENDS Europe, 7 December 2010
Solar developers are set to abandon France following the government’s recent announcement that it will freeze all new projects larger than 3kW in order to prick the “speculative bubble” building up around the industry. –ReCharge News, 6 December 2010
Germany will not guarantee that existing rules for feed-in tariffs for solar power will be continued after 2012, environment minister Norbert Roettgen said on Wednesday.—Reuters, 1 December 2010
According to Mr Eberhard Holstein of Vattenfall Europe Sales, the rapid expansion of renewable energy sources under the present regulatory environment in Germany will lead to a collapse of the power market. Mr Holstein at the Energy Brain days in Berlin said that “We need to decide whether we want a planned economy or market economy.” He said that should no changes be made to the current legal framework in Germany, then the country would have moved to a de facto planned economy.– Steel Guru, 7 December 2010
Few will be surprised if the United Nations Cancun climate talks end in failure. The real surprise is that for the last two decades people seriously believed there was a realistic prospect of securing broad international agreement to restrict CO2 by all the major emitters. –Ruppert Darwall, The Wall Street Journal, 7 December 2010
Three years after he led the charge to require consumers to ditch their comfortable old incandescent lights in favor of those twisty CFL bulbs, Rep. Fred Upton now wants to be the man to help undo that law as the next chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. —Fox News, 7 December 2010
A clever twist on “green” that ought to be employed more often.
Replacing 5 100W incandescent bulbs with CFL lamps requires you to buy a space heater or turn up the thermostat on the furnace when summer has left the land. It isn’t necessarily so that during summer you need start up the air conditioner, so this is not a symmetric balance of energy.
Has anyone done the math to show that the ability of incandescent lamps to cut heating bills in the winter without increasing cooling bills (in many climes) during summer reduces energy savings in expensive mercury-based CFL use to wishful thinking?
“PhilinCalifornia says:
December 7, 2010 at 11:15 am”
I believe you have insulted a box and some rocks in the box in one sentence.
In Australia the Federal govn’t has mandated that only CFL lights be sold after 2012. And in New Zealand some years ago, local authorities were concerend that broken CFL lights was in domestic waste at coucil landfill sites. Yeah, no kidding!
“Heatballs” are the answer 😉
http://www.heatball.de
http://notrickszone.com/2010/11/23/green-police-orders-confiscation-of-enviro-contraband/
http://motls.blogspot.com/2010/11/ddr-stole-40000-little-heatballs.html
Thanks to the posters who took the trouble to research and post excellent rubuttals to Eadler’s usual lunatic comments. Eadler does fulfil a useful function, however, as a totally reliable troll along the lines of John Cleese’s village idiot and is almost guaranteed to post irritating nonsense with a strong Green Comintern flavour on every thread.
Read and weep. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/12/08/carbon_budget_2030/
A summary (full report linked to) of what is proposed for us unfortunate UK inhabitants.
.
Meanwhile, Green Dave wants Britain to invest more in Green Energy. Has this guy no sense or understanding of the issues?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/8185274/Cancun-climate-conference-Britain-should-lead-the-way.html
.
But what the government will not tell us, is that during this recent UK cold snap, the windelecs have all been stationary, and virtually no electricity was being produced. So if the UK had 30% of power generation by wind, as intended, we would have had rolling power cuts across the country and thousands dying every week. (Not much works, in our technical society, without power. No transport, no food production, no shops, no domestic heating.)
The really disgusting thing, is the lack of information. If you search the wind farm companies, or the government wind departments, they will have plenty of ‘right on’ reports about installed capacity, new projects, health and safety, and the environment – but absolutely no information about how much electricity is being produced.
I used to use the Liverpool observatory database, and emailed this to many people, to show that there was no wind when the weather was cold. So what have they done? Locked the database, of course.
Since we are paying for these worthless windfarms though a subsidy, it is our democratic right to know whether they are actually producing anything worthwhile. Can WUWT start a campaign and a pressure group to force governments to provide real-time and historical data on how much energy is coming from each wind farm?
.
This from the British Wind Energy site:
“No problems arise when the wind stops blowing. If nothing else, it is highly unlikely to have stopped blowing all over the country at the same time.”
http://www.bwea.com/ref/stop.html
a. Well, yes, there is a problem, because another energy supply has to take up the slack. It is only not so much of a problem if wind power represents only 1% of supply, but if that were increased to 30% of supply (as David Camoron wants), it would be a disaster.
b. It is highly likely that the wind stops blowing all over the country. A large anticyclone can easily encompass all of northern Europe, and when it does so, the wind stops in the whole of the north of the continent – as the historical wind data clearly shows.
This is not simply the wind fraternity being disingenuous, these are downright lies.
.
Herbert Stein’s Law: “If something cannot go on forever, it will stop,”
ref:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Stein
@ur momisugly Ralph – if you visit the site in the link I posted earlier you will be able to see what’s actually going on in the UK electricity generating industry. It’s updated every 30 minutes, and is broken down by types of generation. You want the “Generation By Fuel Type (table)” page.
http://www.bmreports.com/bsp/bsp_home.htm
Change: Climate hoax marches in Britain allegedly attracted 30,000 in 2006, then 10,000 in 2007, then “thousands” in 2009, then “hundreds” in 2010
>>Dave Ward
>>@ur momisugly Ralph – if you visit the site in the link I posted earlier you will be able to
>>see what’s actually going on in the UK electricity generating industry.
Yes, I visited this site, but all I get is “no information available” for each graph. I tried Safari and Firefox, but no luck.
Any suggestions? (Apple user)
.
My home has four CFL bulbs — they’re the four freebies handed out by BC Hydro to all subscribers about seven or eight years ago. When I moved into my current home in April/2004, I took them out of their packaging and tried to screw them in somewhere. They didn’t fit a SINGLE light fixture in the home. Not one. Too large.
So, they ended up in the two-car garage which, co-incidentally, had four ceiling bulb fixtures. Now, almost seven years later, they’re still there, and actually provide me with good light for when I’m tinkering in the garage. I notice in the winter it takes them 30-60 seconds or so to get to full luminance, but not a big deal. So, credit where due — they’ve lasted, give me good light, and were ‘free’ (yeah, I know, I paid for them in my hydro fees).
However, I will never pay money out of my own pocket for one of these things. Ignoring the issue they don’t fit any other light fixtures, they just don’t make financial sense. You’re paying 5x or 6x more than a regular incandescent and, let’s face it, lighting makes up only a very, very minor part of a household’s electricity use. Savings will be pennies a day/week/month. I’ll save my money now, in one purchase thank you, rather than saving it piecemeal over a (very) long period of time.
James Barker said “I use CFLs outside in my porch lights. They seem to be lasting 3-4 years. One has been there for 5. I never turn them off. They do get fairly dim when it gets really cold. <10 F."
I have had the same experience. Judging from other comments above, the CFLs don't work well in heat (e.g. ceiling fixtures) but seem to be fine in the cold (both of mine have been on 24×7 for 4 years)
Ralph says:
December 8, 2010 at 11:50 am
I am using Firefox. The graphs and table work fine for me, provided I turn on Java scripts.
I was an early adopter of small fluorescents (even before compact, back when they were a 6 or 9 inch ring with a ballast in the middle… still have two of THEM in use…)
They have “issues”. Lots of issues.
First and foremost is mercury. Can’t use them in the fridge (also VERY slow to light due to cold) unless you don’t mind mercury in the food when someone whack it with a spoon diving for the leftover mashed potatoes. Really ought not be used anywhere food is prepared or consumed, IMHO. Yes, folks will eventually break one somewhere. Then exactly HOW LONG is that area mercury contaminated? An area near my dining table is in such a state…
Second is lifetime. I’ve had several (as noted above with emphasis on Sylvania) that had very high “infant mortality”. Some DOA, some Dead In A Week. But also several that have lasted years.
On / Off Cycles: You get 10,000 IF you are lucky. Take a 10 x a day light like the kitchen or bath, you get 2 years plus a bit IF lucky.
Warm up time: Fast Light needs, like security lights? Nope. Fridge? Even if not a mercury problem, it won’t light up enough before you want the door closed. Closet? Hope you can wait a while for that towel. During the ‘warm up’ you are running a little incandescent heater in the bottom, so your energy efficiency is nowhere near advertized…
Flicker: While much better with the 20 kHz electronic ballast (it was horrid with the 60 Hz magnetic ballast and I can’t imagine what it was like on Euro-50 Hz…)
Headaches: Some folks get headaches from the flicker. I know of 2 personally.
Color Rendering Index: On the bulb will be a CRI number if you are lucky. Over 85 gives OK color ‘trueness’, under that are the sickly green and strange yellow ones. Most cheap bulbs have a lousy CRI but you can pay $10 / bulb more and get decent. Incandescent has a 100 CRI (though a low, so redder, color temperature).
Color Temperature: 5000 K bulbs are available. Good for security lighting that is on all night as it has a very blue cast that’s offensive to criminals. 2700 K is the common orange / yellow icky bulbs. 4200 K or so are the “ok” ones, but with a lousy CRI they can still look sort of greenish or pinkish.
Exciting End Of Life: I’ve had several of these things reach End Of Life in ways that were, er, “Not Good”. VERY hot fixtures (as the incandescent glow bits were trying constantly to light the light – typically only in magnetic ballasted lights). Electronics frying with interesting displays of arcing and who knows what chemicals in the gases emitted when plastics and electronic bits bit the dust. Even a bulb fracture or two. Do not put in fixtures which can’t take a small fire without burning the house down.
Lousy cold weather performance: At some low temperature, they simply will not start. Barn in Iowa in January? “Good luck with that”. Minnesota on the back porch in February? You must be joking… We won’t even talk about Alaska… Early on I had some that would not ‘start’ below freezing. Yes, in California I could not get them to start in an exterior fixture. I’ve now got cold rated exterior fixtures (high pressure sodium).
Cant’ throw them away: I’ve got a nice collection of about a dozen dead bulbs. Can’t put them in the trash due to the Garbage Police. Not allowed in the recycle. I’ve heard rumors that you can turn them in as “Toxic Waste” at special disposal sites, but I’ve not found one of those yet. I may spend a few hours driving around and looking for one some day… (Wonder if anyone has figured in the cost of 2 gallons of gas driving each dead bulb across town to the “approved” disposal site?…)
Don’t “dim” worth a damn. I’ve got dimmers in the bath and bedrooms for that “easy wake up” effect. CFLs, even the “dimmable” ones, don’t dim worth a damn. It’s more like a buzzy step function to 1/4 or 1/2 bright (often with flicker) then a ‘range’ then another step to full bright. And of 3 dimmable bulbs I’ve bought, 2 died in short order and the other one is in the spare bulbs box as it’s crap in the dimmer circuit.
Useless for heat: There are large number of combined heat and light uses that are, well, useless with CFLs. Lizzard lamps. Chicken hatcheries. Toy stove / ovens. (And you can’t put a CRL in a real oven either as they are not temperature rated for 300 F…_) So all those “heat from a light” appliances are now garbage OR need to buy a dedicated nichrome heater, unless they need BOTH heat and light like chick warmers… then you have to re-engineer it…
There’s more, but I think you get the picture.
No, I’m not a hard core anti-Green (though they have slowly been driving me away…). I’ve got CFLs and efficient lighting in about 80% of my fixtures. I love the IDEA of the technology. It’s the reality of it that sucks.
dave ward – thanks for the link..! Seems to work fine for me..
Wind power achieved for the last 24 hours – 0.9%…
Wow – Big Dave has nearly reached his target…
>> windpower graphs
>> dave ward – thanks for the link..! Seems to work fine for me..
Ok, I got it working in Firefox, but not Safari.
But cannot see a graph for historical data, to show a politician or two.
.
Douglas DC;
“post-bubble industrial debris” indeed. There are already substantial graveyards of abandoned and busted windmills in CA, Hawaii, and Australia, e.g. You’d think there was already an opportunity for a decent recycling/scrap business, especially considering the REEs tied up in the rotors.