From the GWPF and Dr. Benny Peiser
New Solar Installations Banned
Greece, aiming to stave off a fresh energy crisis, plans to support its main electricity market operator through a temporary tax on renewable power producers and by extending an emergency loan, a senior official said on Friday. The electricity system came close to collapse in June when market operator LAGHE was overwhelmed by subsidies it pays to green power producers as part of efforts to bolster solar energy. Greece has slashed the guaranteed feed-in prices it pays to some solar operators and is no longer approving permits for their installation. –Harry Papachristou, Reuters, 28 September 2012 (http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/28/us-greece-interview-idUSBRE88R0UQ20120928)
Sharp Corp. plans to end production and sales of solar cells and modules in the U.S. and Europe by March as part of a restructuring, Kyodo News said. Osaka-based Sharp plans to cut more than 10,000 jobs, or about 18 percent of its workforce, and is in talks to sell plants as it tries to return to profit, two people with knowledge of the proposal said yesterday. –Bloomberg, 27 September 2012 (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-27/sharp-to-end-solar-panel-business-in-u-s-europe-kyodo-says.html)
The amount of electricity produced from “green” energy sources in Scotland fell by almost half for a period earlier this year – because it was not wet or windy enough. The figures prompted opposition concerns that Scotland could be left in the dark if the “wind isn’t blowing”. –Scot MacNab, The Scotsman, 28 September 2012 (http://www.scotsman.com/news/environment/scotland-not-windy-enough-for-green-power-1-2550478)
The UK biofuels industry stands to be ‘devastated’ by draft proposals being developed by the European Commission, renewables chiefs have warned. “The great irony is we have been repeatedly asking for a clear pathway to 2020, not least to secure investment in technological advancement. Nobody listened. Now Europe is planning a quantum leap which threatens to wipe us out. It is a double whammy and an absolutely galling prospect for companies that have invested millions in good faith.” –Farmers Guardian, 28 September 2012 (http://www.farmersguardian.com/home/renewables/biofuels-industry-would-be-devastated-by-eu-plans-rea/50036.article)
Switzerland would have to charge higher end-user power prices and resort to new gas-fired plants to fill the supply gap created by its planned nuclear phase-out prompted by Japan’s Fukushima accident, the Swiss energy ministry said on Friday. The statement also said the average household electricity bill, estimated at 890 Swiss Francs ($950) a year, was due to rise in line with higher costs for renewable energy and to cover the costs of investment in the grid. –Reuters, 28 September 2012 (http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/28/switzerland-gas-idUSL5E8KSFFT20120928)
Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Davey has given the clearest indication yet that he expects gas to continue to play a major role in the UK’s energy mix for at least the next two decades, revealing 20 new gas-fired power plants are likely to built over the next few years. –Business Green, 27 September 2012 (http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2213148/davey-20-new-gas-power-plants-in-the-pipeline-for-the-uk)
The defence of windfarms put forward by Mark Lynas and Chris Goodall, which was discussed a couple of days ago, has now had a response from Gordon Hughes. Hughes is less than impressed with the two greens’ table manners. He seems even less impressed with their analysis of the electricity grid. –Andrew Montford, Bishop Hill, 28 September 2012 (http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2012/9/28/ouch.html)
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Oh dear. Watch this video to see more stupidity from Greece. They want to turn Crete into one giant windfarm and the locals aren’t happy to say the least:
http://notrickszone.com/2012/09/25/europes-environmental-destruction-madness-now-threatening-to-demolish-beautiful-scenic-crete/
To paraphrase the Narcissist in Chief:
Generations from now we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when the sea of turbines began subside and our economies began to heal…
This was bound to happen and will continue, country by country, as the reality of the fallacy of “sustainable” sinks in. These “sustainable” sources cost more energy over their production and entire lifetime including shutdown and recycling that they will ever produce.
Nuclear is the correct path and I personally want them to make these new reactors at least equivalent to the LFTR designs, self-shut down, operating at ambient atmospheric pressures and producing magnitudes less of short half-life waste products that can mostly be extracted after ten years into useable nuclear products. The small amount remaining we can easily handle for the few centuries while they decay. This means they must be designed to burn 99% of the fuel as was demonstrated decades ago, and then ignored so atomic bombs could be produced from the plutonium waste. Mans biggest mistake.
This needs explanation or correction. Was it “too wet”, i.e. too cloudy and a simple typo error? Was the “not wet” condition indicative of fewer storms and less wind? Was some of the green energy hydroelectric and “not wet enough’ means the reservoir levels are low? In what other way could “not wet enough” be a problem for green energy production?
OhmMG!
Lynas and Goodall, to their credit, showed up on Bishop Hill on an earlier post on their report:
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2012/9/26/missing-the-point.html
However after a few exchanges when a number of BH regulars demonstrated that they knew a hell of a lot more about electricity generation than the clueless greenies who were impressed by Lynas and Goodall’s sleight of hand they disappeared sharpish.
Like a house of cards this will all collapse very soon. The fact is, Europe can’t afford these utopian fantasies. They never could. We warned them.
My feelings are that Greece will default sometime after the US elections. (Yes, Obama asked them not to make a decision on their bailout until after the election and the Eurozone complied.) But, after that, we have a different house of cards in play. Windmills and solar panels will be the least of our concerns.
Greece, aiming to stave off a fresh energy crisis, plans to support its main electricity market operator through a temporary tax on renewable power producers and by extending an emergency loan, a senior official said on Friday. The electricity system came close to collapse in June when market operator LAGHE was overwhelmed by subsidies it pays to green power producers as part of efforts to bolster solar energy.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
So…. they are putting a tax on green energy in order to subsidize conventional energy because the conventional energy is going broke due to subsidies paid to green energy. I believe this is called robbing Peter to pay Paul with money that Paul robbed from Peter.
Somewhere some beauracrat is no doubt adding up all the jobs in both industries and claiming that he saved/created all of them.
From the Scotsman article
The Scottish Government put the falls down to low rainfall, which help power hydro plants, in April and May, while “lower wind speeds” led to a fall in wind power.
…so it refers to hydro as well as wind
Wayne, LFTR is not proven technology. You are marketing it as if it is.
“Switzerland . . . planned nuclear phase-out prompted by Japan’s Fukushima accident”
Lessee if I’ve got this straight: Japan had a pretty bad incident with Fukushima caused by a once-in-a-lifetime tsunami, so Switzerland is going to phase out nuclear power? Why, because they fear a tsunami will wash over their nuclear reactor(s) and cause similar damage?
News flash, Switzerland: If a tsunami high enough to wash over Switzerland hits y’all, nuclear reactor damage will be the least of your worries.
cui bono says:
September 29, 2012 at 10:22 am
OhmMG!
You should copyright that!
Barbara Skolaut says:
September 29, 2012 at 11:39 am
Yes, but before that, they moved all emergency power supplies of their nukes into the basement. /sarc
So Scotland is just waking up to the fact that wind is intermittant (and never blows when you really want it, like in mid-winter). Just how stupid are these people?
Quite stupid, really, to the point of being religious. I posted long articles about wind-intermittancy on the Wiki wind power pages, in 2005, and they were deleted time and time again. Finally I was kicked off Wiki for “site vandalism”. That’s right – telling the truth on Wiki is classed as vandalism.
These are the levels on which Green ‘believers’ work. They are religious, and they will oppose each and every fact and truth that undermines their belief system. Like all believers, “there are none so blind as those who will not see”.
.
Barbara Skolaut says: September 29, 2012 at 11:39 am
“Switzerland . . . planned nuclear phase-out prompted by Japan’s Fukushima accident”
——————————————-
Germany is doing the same.
I was talking to a German nuclear scientist (who was looking for a job in the UK). He said that half Germany’s nuclear plants were already closed. To make up the difference, they are boosting output from brown-coal plants, and imports from France.
However, the brown-coal plants are the dirtiest of all, increasing CO2 output by a considerable margin. And the electricity from France is all nuclear.
Are these ‘believers’ mad or what? If we let them, they will destroy us all.
.
Silver Ralph says:
September 29, 2012 at 12:13 pm
There is no objective truth. There is only the NPOV. You should have written: “Scientists speculate that wind speed changes over time, leading to potential fluctuations in the output of wind turbines.” And give a reference for that. For instance this IEA report:
http://www.uwig.org/IEA_Report_on_variability.pdf
“VARIABILITY OF
WIND POWER AND
OTHER RENEWABLES”
Barbara Skolaut says:
September 29, 2012 at 11:39 am
Well, technically, the reactors fared quite well, taking little if any damage. The supporting equipment was protected by a seawall that was designed for what was expected from Typhoons and Tsunamis, plus a margin of error to deal with transitory events larger than is usually seen.
No one expected a “Black Swan” event that produced a tsunami twice that height, well above the expected margin of error.
So, it’s nuclear power’s fault.
See the logic?
Silver Ralph says:
September 29, 2012 at 12:18 pm
“Are these ‘believers’ mad or what? If we let them, they will destroy us all.”
Yes they are, they are my coworkers, but be assured that they’re all parroting class warfare arguments at the moment, as that is the narrative they currently get fed by the public media and Der Spiegel.
And they are too old and too weak to attack anyone but themselves.
“Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.”
Attributed to Albert Einstein.
GeoLurking says:
September 29, 2012 at 12:24 pm
absoflippinglutely! – but hey, the Swiss won’t let some facts get in the way of stupid reasoning!
DirkH says: September 29, 2012 at 12:21 pm.”
There is no objective truth. There is only the NPOV. You should have written: “Scientists speculate that wind speed changes over time, leading to potential fluctuations in the output of wind turbines.” And give a reference for that.
————————————————————
You try it, and see how long your post lasts.
.
Stephen Rasey says:
September 29, 2012 at 10:16 am
Was it “too wet”, i.e. too cloudy and a simple typo error? Was the “not wet” condition indicative of fewer storms and less wind?
Not enough rain, for the hydro electric plants, most of Scotland’s (and therefore the UK’s) hydro electricity is generated in North West Scotland. Despite what you might have read about the UK having been drowned by rain this did NOT apply to North West Scotland which was unusually dry.
http://www.robedwards.com/2012/07/blame-it-on-the-jet-stream.html
Do not forget that whilst all that rain was falling early in the spring/summer there were drought orders in place. Hydro is not easy to produce in drought conditions.
http://www.itv.com/news/2012-06-13/dfhh/
As dry and low windspeed conditions often go hand-in-hand below expectation power from windmills was produced. This came as no surprise to anyone over 50 years old and had a working memory, however politicians and and climate “scientistics” (aka CAGW priests) were surprised and shocked by these events.
Therefore in answer to your question, there is no misprint and the report is accurate and factually correct.
Sandy
Off-topic, a bit. Greek power industry has been heavily affected by EU Directives [like all power industries in the EU, not localized to Greece].
Here is a lift from a site disussing EU draft legislation on motorcycles.
http://www.ridersarevoters.org/how-the-eu-anti-tampering-regulation-is-progressing/
How the EU Anti-tampering Regulation is progressing…
Further to the meeting I’ve just had with Malcolm Harbour MEP, the chairman of the EU Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee (IMCO), I now have a better idea of what we are looking at as the Type Approval and Market Surveillance Regulation moves through the EU legislative process. This is the one covering anti-tampering, ABS etc.
Because so much legislation is created within Europe, MEPs can’t reasonably debate all of it, so certain committees are tasked with the job in the early days and they then recommend things to the whole EU Parliament.
Because there are so many different subjects, even the committee members often don’t know what they’re debating, so they in turn appoint what is called a Rapporteur, who does their best to study the topic in depth and then reports back their recommendations. See how this democracy works? Anyway, after the committee members have viewed the Rapporteurs ideas, they put in their own amendments and the whole committee vote on what amendments they are happy to see. We are lucky that it just happens the Rapporteur in this instance, actually rides a bike.
Whenever that has been done the Council of Ministers and the EU Parliament get to see it, so those are other places that we can direct our lobbying.
As this is a ‘Framework Regulation’ once it’s passed it does not have to be transposed into Law in Individual Member States, as it will happen automatically.
The Rapporteur has reported back and amendments are on the table now and being discussed within IMCO. Like giving an opt out for special ‘one-off’ bike builders, (but only the British and the Finns want that) and also making ABS compulsory on mopeds too (Germans want that- or rather the German ABS industry wants that). Generally the British representatives are prepared to consider the switch option for ABS, but Malcolm Harbour for example, wants all of the onboard diagnostics thrown out too. We’ll see how the nogotiations go.
The good news is that every email and letter you’ve written has caused members of the committee to think and with MAGs equivilent organisations doing the same in Finland for example, we may realistically get some of the worst elements of this legislation under control. We’ve already upset the timetable, as the Parliament were due to vote on this in September and now IMCO won’t finally vote on their changes until 4th/5th or 6th Oct and it can’t go to Parliament before then.
However, it’s not just the Regulation from Europe that will be effecting us soon. The 10 very real European issues that we still need to draw attention to are:
1.The Anti tampering Regulation: Specifically Article 18 which wants to stop all modifications to complete power train, from airbox to controlling the rear tyre profile.
2.Compulsory ABS. If we can’t stop this, we must get a switch so that we have an option in difficult conditions where ABS doesn’t function well.
3.Automatic headlights on- passing the blame for poor observation on to us.
4.OBD. On Board Diagnostics so that easy roadside checks can be made of our emissions and so that constant readouts of engine performance can be obtained. Expensive, complicated and with the threat, rather like a tacho, of identifying past riding style…
5.RMI. Repair and Maintenance Information. Rather than keeping it hidden and available for huge expense, there is a chance that manufacturers will be forced to provide ECU codes etc for a fee. What that fee is remains to be seen.
6.The very worrying article 52: “If systems, components or seperate technical units on a list in a delegated act to this regulation, have a dual use, for vehicles intended exclusively for racing on roads and for vehicles intended for use on public roads, they may not be sold or offered for sale to consumers” So if your K&N filter can fit a CBR race bike and a CBR road bike, the best way to police that, is to make it illegal to sell the filter in Europe.The Delegated Acts are the most scary thing, as they are the lists and details drawn up by the unelected and we won’t get to see what they are including until after the Regulation has been passed!
7.In solidarity with the French we need to be drawing attention to their recent government proposal to ban all bikes over 7 years old from an urban area and to make the wearing of day-glo/ reflective clothing compulsory.
8.Full sleeve day-glo clothing for riders and passengers has been proposed in the Irish Parliament too.
9.All these issues lead to the same thing, that we must take the blame for the incompetence of other road users. And while the emergency stop has been removed as a compulsory element of the UK car driving test, we are jumping through hoops with ill-judged UK interpretations of EU licencing directives.
10.Another EU licencing Directive is on its way (3DLD) to step the bike licencing system still further and the DfT and DSA still haven’t sorted the consultation process, even though it is meant to be in law by now and enacted January 2013.
by: Paddy Tyson
Here is a large part of the problem with the human race. We are rich enough (our leaders think) to support a cadre of ‘legislators’ at every level from local, through district/county, to regional, national, supra-national, continental, and global.
They have to justify their existence [“We clarified the law on cabbage provison” is not enough to show for four years living high on the hog at tax-payer [and debt servicer] expense . . . .]
– somehow.
Regulations on banning or controlling things are the way to go.
Lots of work drafting them.
Lots of work promulgating them – and policing them.
Sorry – ‘work’ should have been in quotes – it’s not useful work . . . .
Auto.
Silver Ralph says:
September 29, 2012 at 1:04 pm
“You try it, and see how long your post lasts.”
I can’t. I believe in objective truth. Submitting to the NPOV would be heretical.
Gamecock said: ” LFTR is not proven technology.”
And whose fault is that? Twice in the last 30 years Republican administrations have funded Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) research at the national laboratories to build and prove the technology. And twice Democratic administrations have cancelled the projects. Now the technology is being developed by Japan, China, the UK, Russia, and private US, Czech and Australian companies. If we had proven the technology twenty years ago, we would not be stuck with relics of the Cold War designed not for safety but to produce Plutonium and massive amounts of nuclear waste.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=smarter-use-of-nuclear-waste
http://skirsch.com/politics/globalwarming/ifr.htm