In the UK, the CIVITAS group has just released an economic analysis of wind power. The scathing report confirms what we have been reporting for years here on WUWT: wind power is expensive, inefficient, does little or nothing to offset CO2, and isn’t economically viable without taxpayer funded subsidies. Oh, and they kill birds and bats, plus blight the landscape too.
They report:
[Wind-power] is expensive and yet it is not effective in cutting CO2 emissions. If it were not for the renewables targets set by the Renewables Directive, wind-power would not even be entertained as a cost-effective way of generating electricity or cutting emissions. The renewables targets should be renegotiated with the EU. [p. 30]
Energy experts warn that unwarranted support for wind-power is hindering genuinely cleaner energy
The focus on wind-power, driven by the renewables targets, is preventing Britain from effectively reducing CO2 emissions, while crippling energy users with additional costs, according to a new Civitas report. The report finds that wind-power is unreliable and requires back-up power stations to be available in order to maintain a consistent electricity supply to households and businesses. This means that energy users pay twice: once for the window-dressing of renewables, and again for the fossil fuels that the energy sector continues to rely on. Contrary to the implied message of the Government’s approach, the analysis shows that wind-power is not a low-cost way of reducing emissions.
Electricity Costs: the folly of wind-power, by economist Ruth Lea, uses Government-commissioned estimates of the costs of electricity generation in the UK to calculate the most cost-effective technologies. When all costs are included, gas-fired power is the most cost-efficient method of generating electricity in the short-term, while nuclear power stations become the most cost-efficient in the medium-term.
…
Besides the prohibitive costs, the report shows that wind-power, backed by conventional gas-fired generation, can emit more CO2 than the most efficient gas turbines running alone:
In a comprehensive quantitative analysis of CO2 emissions and wind-power, Dutch physicist C. le Pair has recently shown that deploying wind turbines on “normal windy days” in the Netherlands actually increased fuel (gas) consumption, rather than saving it, when compared to electricity generation with modern high-efficiency gas turbines. Ironically and paradoxically the use of wind farms therefore actually increased CO2 emissions, compared with using efficient gas-fired combined cycle gas turbines (CCGTs) at full power. [p. 30]
This means that the cost of having wind is not just carried by consumers but by the environment as well.
…
The report concludes:
[Wind-power] is expensive and yet it is not effective in cutting CO2 emissions. If it were not for the renewables targets set by the Renewables Directive, wind-power would not even be entertained as a cost-effective way of generating electricity or cutting emissions. The renewables targets should be renegotiated with the EU. [p. 30]
More here (and the report itself):
http://www.civitas.org.uk/press/prleaelectricityprices.htm
h/t to Brian H.
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Smokey says:
Fossil fuels are the gold standard of energy production.
Only if their damages are ignored.
But those damages are real, and are paid elsewhere than at the gas pump or electric meter. Coal doesn’t price out at any level (Muller, Mendelsohn, and Nordhaus, 2010).
> The best way to test that would be to eliminate all energy subsidies.
Then that should include the large subsidies fossil fuels receive by being allowed to emit their pollution cost-free onto the property of others. That, too, is a form of socialism, and it skews the free market and leads to economic inefficiencies.
Erinome says:
“Doug Cotton: Oh, please. Arguments like Johnson’s have been debunked again and again. More importantly, there is stark evidence of the greenhouse effect…”
Erinome: Oh, please. Those are just unproven conjectures. Opinions. If the putative ‘greenhouse effect’ could be quantified, there would be no more discussion; the issue would be settled. But the endless debate shows decisively that the issue is not settled. There is not even agreement on the basic question of climate sensitivity to 2xCO2.
There may be an effect from added CO2. But it has certainly not been proven.
Smokey, the greenhouse effect *has* been quantified — simple measurements of the radiation spectrum at the Earth’s surface and the top of its atmosphere demonstrate it.
And the effect from added CO2 has also been proven:
“Increases in greenhouse forcing inferred from the outgoing longwave radiation spectra of the Earth in 1970 and 1997,” J.E. Harries et al, Nature 410, 355-357 (15 March 2001).
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v410/n6826/abs/410355a0.html
Good thing we can just order an E-cat LENR instead! GK
http://ecat.com/ecat-products
Erinome says:
January 10, 2012 at 7:28 pm
Of course, fossil fuels also are not “economically viable without taxpayer funded subsidies.” Both direct payments (about $4 billion last year in the US) and, mostly, indirect, via the damaging pollution it dumps into and onto the property of others and of the Commons. Without this massive subsidy — a form of socialism, really — fossil fuels would not be (so-called) competitive. A recent paper by Nordhaus finds that power generation by coal causes more damage than value added….
========================================================
Lmao! Ok sis, start quoting Nordhaus. Are you really comparing the $4 billion tax easement to the uncountable subsidies to renewables? That’s a riot. How much, in direct payments have gone to alternatives? $4 billion seems like a pretty good bargain from any perspective. While I agree this is a form a socialism and it shouldn’t be necessary, you comparing the $4 billion to the hundreds of billions thrown at lunatic alternatives make me wonder how steady of a grasp on reality you have. The DOE gave $65 billion away last year alone on fantasy sources of energy! Now, consider the returns.
If you want to speak of science, specifically delineate the “damage” coal causes. I put cheap, reliable, abundant electricity above any fantasy any day, all day. You can have refrigerated food, or, you can fantasize about it. You can have light at night, or you can fantasize about it. You can have air-conditioning in the heat of the summer or you can fantasize about it. (This includes air-conditioning of hospitals) You can have refrigerated medications or you can fantasize about it. (If you don’t think that’s a big deal, just go to an electrified hospital and ask) …… I could and probably should go on, but if you’re too dense to understand what I’ve just stated, there isn’t much point in going further.
The point would be, read the damned report. Think for yourself for just a second and understand what the hell you’re advocating. Here’s a reality. With or without alternative energy, this world requires carbon based fuel for our energy. Every delay on this reality kills people.
Consider the contrast. We could, if we collectively chose to, deliver technology and money to a place which had no electricity. We could show them how to burn coal transfer that power to energy. Suddenly, these people would have what we have.
Or we can show them how to plant pinwheels and sun catchers and they can have electric, sometimes. Of course, sometimes still spoils food, the medicine still turns to being ineffective or poison. Planning, of course, is impossible. What person advocates such a thing?
Erinome says:
“…that should include the large subsidies fossil fuels receive by being allowed to emit their pollution cost-free onto the property of others.”
If, as I assume, you are referring to CO2 as “pollution”, then we need not take this any further. Because you, as a gross ‘pollution’ emitter, must accept the moral imperitive to eliminate yourself as a source of CO2 “pollution”.
OTOH, if you’re only referring to such things as carbon soot as pollution, then we can be in agreement.
Because CO2 is not “pollution”, no matter what nonsense you have been spoon-fed. CO2 is essential to the biosphere. More is better. CO2 is harmless and beneficial. Those are provable facts: no global damage or harm can be credibly attributed to the increase in CO2 – and that increase has raised agricultural productivity significantly. Those who want to reduce CO2 emissions also want to kill off the poorest cohort of the planet’s population.
But if you accept that CO2 is harmless, and beneficial to the biosphere, then we are in agreement. And of course it follows that increased use of fossil fuels, in place of their alternatives, is the only ethically acceptable road to global prosperity. In fact, it is the only means, period, if government subsidies are eliminated.
So let us eliminate all government subsidies of every kind of energy production, and observe which survives – and which is winnowed out by the free market.
James Sexton says:
If you want to speak of science, specifically delineate the “damage” coal causes.
Really? You haven’t seen that mercury is a neurotoxin; that SO2 emissions cause acid rain; that soot and particulate matter damages lungs; that CO2 emissions cause climate change; that mountaintops are being removed in West Virginia, polluting streams and ruining ecosystems?
I’m sure you know about these things — but you want to ignore them. Nordhaus, a professional environmental economist who skeptics favor for his analysis of climate impacts, has taken a crack at adding all these damages up. He finds that coal causes more damage than value-added.
LOL … Tom there were no errors … it’s rather that the WUWT moderators have determined that WUWT’s readers sometimes need to be shielded from facts and explanations that might distress them.
REPLY: Bull, Dr. Sidles, you are treading on thin ice sir. If you want to denigrate the volunteer moderators, you are free to do it elsewhere since you seem to take displeasure that your thread bombing here is not always successful. First warning, you are coming close to being exiled, and no I’m not interested in discussing it. – Anthony
Smokey says:
Because CO2 is not “pollution”, no matter what nonsense you have been spoon-fed.
If you want to ignore science, why not simply claim that the 1st law of thermodynamics doesn’t hold, and then you can generate all the energy you want from a perpetual motion machine. Problem solved.
If your only response to an argument is to revert to the position that the science is incorrect — science accepted by the vast majority of scientists and by every scientific academy in the world — then you have admitted you have no real response.
I challenge anyone on this thread pushing the idea that the oil industry receives massive subsidies from the US goverment to cite one specific subsidy unique to the oil industry.
Early last year the Democrats in congress floated a bill to eliminate those subsidies. However if you actually read the bill every single item in the bill was one of the following.
GAAP accounting rules followed by all manufacturing buisnesses
Tax deductions available to all manufacturing businesses
Tax credits available to all manufacturing businesses.
Not one item in the list was unique to the oil industry nor was any item in the list a true subsidy.
Note: Basic infrastructure such as roads do not count as subsidies to the oil industry. Roads are open to all vehicles meeting certain criteria. The vehicles power source is not one of them.
“At a public inquiry, some self-righteous councillor told them they had no right to object, since millions of Bangladeshis would drown in floods unless we all converted to wind power.”
Why doesn’t someone at these public inquiries shout out the truth and shout down the clown… and make such words the laughing stock of the town. At most we are speaking of about a millimeter or two a year, if any, and people are going to DROWN? Man has managed just fine the slow encroachment of the seas over the last 10,000 years. If the water is getting over your soles, move, and cuss your ancestors from moving to that damn low laying island in the first place. T’aint my fault. Go beg to the charities, I give, but not to my government.
After having read all this comment traffic, I’ve concluded that “stone madness” is contagious. Throw one raving nut-case into the mix and the the entire pile goes completely bonkers. Lordy!
GregS says:
January 10, 2012 at 12:20 pm
True, but “a physicist” hasn’t provided enough information about the coal to make an informed decision. Having helped mine a few million tons of the stuff myself, I have to ask:
1. What is the stripping ratio? (overburden depth /coal thickness, along with material type)
2. What is the quality of the coal? Give it to us in BTU/ton. (this will help determine the value of the coal)
3. What’s the market for coal in the region?
4. What’s the access to a major haul routes in case it has to be hauled significant distances to market.
5. What’s the areal extent of the coal? Are we talking acres or sq miles?
6. What’s on top of the coal–are there buildings that obstruct the extraction, or farm land that must be reclaimed? Are their right-of-ways that can’t be touched and impede the mining operation?
Some of these same questions can be asked about this “sure-fire” wind farm, which value can’t be ascertained without specific answers, even if Buffet thinks it’s a wonderful idea (why would he let a fantastic investment like this out of the bag unless he’s somehow making money betting against it).
Erinome says:
January 10, 2012 at 9:32 pm
James Sexton says:
If you want to speak of science, specifically delineate the “damage” coal causes.
Really? You haven’t seen that mercury is a neurotoxin; that SO2 emissions cause acid rain; that soot and particulate matter damages lungs; that CO2 emissions cause climate change; that mountaintops are being removed in West Virginia, polluting streams and ruining ecosystems?
I’m sure you know about these things — but you want to ignore them. Nordhaus, a professional environmental economist who skeptics favor for his analysis of climate impacts, has taken a crack at adding all these damages up. He finds that coal causes more damage than value-added.
===================================================================
Yes, I’ve seen those things. And, I’ve read Nordhaus. And, the posits are vapid. Yes, mercury is a neurotoxin. Acid rain is as much as a dark fantasy as ocean acidification is. Being a smoker, I’m well aware of soot and particulate. I don’t give a rats ass about a mountaintop. I asked for science and you gave me hyperbole.
I would address each one individually, but I don’t believe your attention span would last that long, given your deft regurgitation of tripe. So, I’ll approach this in a different manner. You assume, apparently, that there is no value in the electricity coal provides. Apparently, you also assume that electricity would be available without coal. And, perhaps it can be now. Without the recent discovery of abundant natural gas, it would not have been possible for cheap and continuous electricity. And even with the natural gas, replacing coal as a source of electricity is senseless. Most of the issues you bring up as a point regards the human condition. I ask you to stop and think. Consider all of the things coal brings to us in the form of electricity. Now, understand, all of what should have been considered which is not possible without coal.
Consider the poor souls in impoverished parts of the world without electricity. Some burn dung in their homes for heat. Tell me, how much soot and particulate are they breathing compared to having coal fired electricity? Some places of this world can’t refrigerate food properly because they’ve no electricity or it is so sporadic that they can’t properly store their food. Tell me, would you rather live near a coal plant or eat rancid food? I propose we show them how to burn coal and use electricity as opposed to eating rancid meat. What do you propose? Should we give them a pinwheel instead?
Yes, with everything there is a cost. And everything without, there is a cost. This discussion has carried on too long for this to be novel information. If you need clarification, just ask. If you don’t desire clarification you should know I despise willful ignorance, especially when lives are in balance. You do realize most of the hyperbole you’ve absorbed was made possible through coal, right? Still today, nearly half of the electricity provided in the U.S. is provided by coal. Hospitals, grocery stores, air-conditioners, water treatment plants, refrigerators…… yeh, that bastard coal is killing people. Lunatics!
My aunt recently passed, she was nearly a centenarian. Do you think it was the coal that finally did her in? Or, is it that the coal allowed her to expand her life expectancy? If we had just dug up more REE instead of coal our lives would be so much better. Or maybe if we fracked just a bit more, we’d have been fine. Or maybe, just maybe if we laid out some more nuke plants…….. short sighted lunatics…….
Smokey says:
Because CO2 is not “pollution”, no matter what nonsense you have been spoon-fed. CO2 is essential to the biosphere. More is better. CO2 is harmless and beneficial.
Like essentially all substances, it is sometimes beneficial and sometimes harmful, and can have degrees of each in different circumstances. It can be advantageous in one situation, and polluting in another.
CO2 makes plants grow faster, but in doing so some of them have fewer nutrients. CO2 is essential to making the planet habitable for humans, but more of it warms the oceans and atmospheres and alters the climate, to which civilization must adjust — too high a rate of change and adjustment becomes problematic. Canada would benefit from a longer growing season, but rising sea levels can damage coastlines and invade water tables. Warmer temperatures mean less frigid cold snaps, but hotter heat waves. CO2 changes the pH of the oceans, which can threaten species like coral that can’t migrate or shellfish reliant on certain bays and estuaries. But it could conceivably hold off another ice age or aeroform Mars.
The world is not black-and-white. One label does not fit all.
James, yes, coal was almost certainly a net benefit to your grandmother (unless her husband died mining it).
Is that all that matters? What about other’s grandmothers? Those who lived downstream from a strip mine, or downwind from a power plant that burned coal? What of the grandmothers who died in the 2003 French heat wave, or are losing income from this year’s drought in Texas?
Should people in the future have the same chances your grandmother did? Affordable energy is certainly important, but so is clean air and water. Depending on where you live, so is a stable sea level or snowpack, and so on.
Coal was once an important new way to generate power. But we now have technologies that didn’t exist 50 years ago, or even 20 years ago, and we are wealthier now too. We can therefore avoid to pay more to avoid damages that were once acceptable, and to avoid damages that our children’s and grandchildren’s generations will incur on our behalf. This is the history of the advance of civilization — to make the world cleaner and more efficient. Why should it stop now?
James Sexton, can I use your words when I get into such an argument? That is one of the best responses I have ever read. And, sorry to hear of your aunt, I have one still here at 97 years old and I thank every day for the electricity that allowed her to live so long.
Coal has lifted mankind out of the gutter of life, kill coal right now and you are a killer, literally. We need something like thorium reactors now and need them fast.
No amount of subsidy or cost reduction can compensate for the fact that there is no electrical load that can function on a variable and intermittent power source. Wind or solar battery charging is feasible only if the battery is not required to be recharged in a timely and reliable manner. Why would you even buy an expensive battery if you don’t need it to be charged and available?
It is so ironic that we are reminded of how bad coal is almost daily by so-called environmentalists who want to tell us how bad off we are today. Over half of the power in the US is still generated by coal. And yet we have cleaner air today then we have had in over 100 years. This fact often escapes these fanatics who have lost the plot.
We have the longest life-span today then ever before. Our healthcare is better then it has ever been in this country. I could of course go on about how great life is compared to 100 years ago, but I think unless someone has stuck their heads in the sand, we could probably all agree on this. And if you do not agree, go read up on the Copper Wars in Montana and how a lack of environmental regulations (which is ironically how China does it today) was done back 100 years ago…..
And the only thing you hear about is how bad we are poisoning our planet and how the costs of coal are going to kill us all. And how bad mercury is. Of course Mercury is perfectly acceptable inside the house around children in lightbulbs which can break and cause a toxic episide, but coming out of a smokestack….no way man!
But if you look at the facts, coal has gotten the US to where we are today. Sure, oil, nuclear and other power sources have provided a secondary source of power over the last century and have helped us out as well. But over the last 100 years, the US has risen from a back-water country to the number one world power with everything I listed due to coal as our primary power source and that is true today just as it was 100 years ago.
Progress has been made and the most ironic thing of all of this is that if you look at pollution levels since 1900 to today, you can not even pick when the Clean Air Act was first passed or further passings were done or when the EPA was first installed. The air pollution by any regard has been heading downwards since around 1900 at a downward slope as our society has moved up in progress.
Some may herald this as an achievement as we moved from burning wood and other stuff to coal as the main reason that our society has flourished and gone from a society where the average life is now double what it was 100 years ago. While others cry about mercury, acid rain and other evils that they claim exist instead of looking at our society with optimism and hoping to achieve more through progress and putting their own work into making society better.
Society does not get better by these leeches. They will drag us down and eventually progress will grind to a halt. Who will want to make a better invention if there is no motivation or no reward for doing so? Communism and socialism do not work. Any example from the 20th century can show us this.
Our only hope is to remember the lessons of the past and move forward. Obviously, obsolete technology that is romanticized like wind power is worthless and not even worth discussing.
People did use this form of power for themselves. Look up wind turbines in the 1930’s in rural settings. These were used and were MORE EXPENSIVE by orders of magnitude back then even then say coal. They were a luxury and were installed and used with expensive batteries for people who could afford to build them to power their homes where no power was available.
It was sure nice to have the extra money to do that, but these “expensive luxuries” died out as the grid expanded and covered most of the US. Now wind power is so sporadic to be all but useless except in very limited locales where as before the GRID DOES NOT COVER IT.
As I have said once and will say again, unless you want to pay the additional money to pay for your own power to be from solar, wind etc, shut up and do so. Let us choose what we want to use.
I don’t want you forcing your beliefs on me. So don’t force yours on me. I want the cheapest form of power, and I don’t want to pay higher taxes to do so.
I don’t want Warren Buffet and other billionaires getting tax breaks to put these monsters up. If you believe this is right, well go ahead and keep believing that is the right path. Your religion is obviously set in stone. Just don’t shove your religion down my throat. I won’t shove mine down yours.
Because the second you start that….turnaround will come about.
Much as I despise all think-tanks, I suppose it’s inevitable that occasionally one will actually say something semi-intelligent, as in this case, just by the laws of chance.
It also says something about the UK that I’ve just sat through an hour of the BBC’s morning
newspropaganda programme on the radio and there has been not a word about this. Now, that’s ‘objective and impartial’ (ho ho).Erinome: You say: “Arguments like Johnson’s have been debunked …” I call your bluff. Read what Johnson’s argument actually is regarding the cut off frequency as determined by Wien’s Displacement Law, and show me just one single “debunking.” There has been absolutely none in over 6 months, my friend, because it is true physics – what happens in the real world. You’ll find links on my page here: http://climate-change-theory.com/RadiationAbsorption.html which is a “preview” of a chapter in my book soon to be published.
What does NOT exist is any proof whatsoever that radiation from a cooler atmosphere can warm a warmer surface. I suggest yuo get your facts right before arguing physics with myself or Professor Claes Johnson.
The biggest problem with these oversized windmills is huge levels (up to 100 dB SPL) of low frequency noise (infrasound). It is of course outside the range of human hearing, but it does interfere with our ability to hear proper sounds, nonetheless (feeling like deafened by too much noise, even in apparent silence). Also, it can easily overexcite the vestibular sytem, making life next to impossible if exposed for extended periods (symptoms like seasickness).
As infrasounds can’t be perceived directly, there are no regulations in place for them, so irresponsible developers are inclined to place those monsters too close to human habitation and workplaces. Auxiliary infrastructure for construction and maintenance is much cheaper that way.
Also, infrasounds of such low frequency are impossible to attenuate, there is no protection against them whatsoever, they travel freely, circumventing barriers and penetrating buildings.
Hearing Research Volume 268, Issues 1–2, 1 September 2010, Pages 12–21
doi: 10.1016.j.heares.2010.06.007
Responses of the Ear to Low Frequency Sounds, Infrasound and Wind Turbines
Alec N. Salt and Timothy E. Hullar
Department of Otolaryngology, Washington University School of Medicine, Box 8115, 660 South Euclid Avenue, St. Louis, MO 63110, USA
Cochlear Fluids Research Laboratory, Washington University in St. Louis
Doug Cotton: Did you notice the basic experimental observation of the GH effect?
I’ve read Claes Johnson. He has disproven just about ever major finding in science, usually at a rate of 2-3 per week. He’s what they call a crackpot (see http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/crackpot.html), and he’s not worth wasting a lot of valuable time on. There is too much good science to learn, and both of us should be spending our time on that.
If Johnson wants to be taken seriously, let him submit his work to the science journals like everyone else. There real experts will dissect it, and journal readers can work through it. I guarantee you it won’t hold up — even Roy Spencer disagrees that the GH effect violates the 2nd law:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2010/07/yes-virginia-cooler-objects-can-make-warmer-objects-even-warmer-still/
Of course, Claes Johnson won’t do any such write-up, or journal submission. It would shatter his illusions.
I would like to bring readers’s attention to the post on Bishop Hill in regard to George Watson.
The post Abuse of power against anti-wind farm movement can be read here:-
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2012/1/10/government-surveillance-of-windfarm-protestor.html#comments
I remind readers of Matt t& Janet Thompson, and of their Operations Manager, Lindley Boseley who committed suicide, Peter Spencer, Dr Tim Ball and many many others.
Thompsons: http://www.familyfirst.org.au/files/The-Story-of%20Matt-and-Janet-Thompson.pdf
Spencer: http://www.abc.net.au/rural/content/2009/s2778535.htm
Ball: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/04/08/help-asked-for-dr-tim-ball-in-legal-battle-with-dr-mann/
I will be posting this comment also on Tips n Notes.
‘A physicist’
“Definitely I stand by my main number, which everyone can check for themselves, and is easy for the public to remember: one square mile of Iowa windblades yields, each year, one billion dollars worth of electric power.”
Total and utter rubbish. If you stand by that number, even after the debunking I and others have shown then you are disgracing the title of physicist.
You can check it out yourself simply by looking at acreage and average (not peak) power output from installed wind farms. As a rule of thumb for coarse comparison one can work on the basis of 1 watt per square metre of real estate employed. That’s the order that wind farms actually achieve.
One square mile is approximately 2.6 million square metres, so one square mile of windfarm in Iowa can be expected to produce 2.6 megawatts of electricity. I’m sure there would be a lot of power generation companies interested in getting a revenue of one billion dollars a year for generating a mere average 2.6MW, and I’m sure you can see that the prospect is so ridiculous as to be untrue. This power output is only sufficient to run a small town of a few thousand homes. Do you think that a small town could be fleeced with 1 billion dollars per year in electricity charges? Each home charged hundreds of thousands of dollars for electricity per year? Get real.
If you stand by your number then, sir, of one billion dollars of electricity per year from one square mile of Iowa, and are promoting that ‘easy for the public to remember’ number then there is a word for you, and it’s not physicist.
Stop peddling falsehoods.