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)
Gary Hladik says:
September 29, 2012 at 12:27 pm
“Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.”
Even as all these ominous events occur in fairly rapid succession, the Warmist faith in their Cause seems unshaken. Truly disastrous events are sure to occur before they realize their folly, after which it will likely be too late to avert massive economic catastrophe.
Said global catastrophe will represent the ultimate monument to the unbridled hubris of progressives.
Can’t wait.
Not sure which will happen first, faux green energy (wind and solar) being scrapped, or the arctic being ice free in the summer. Go carbon!
Even some environmentalists are concerned. One described Japan’s desire to create
coal plants to replace nuclear power as ” total insanity.” I don’t know how many realize this, but
that “nuclear waste” still contains about 99% of its energy after passing thru conventional reactors
and a fast reactor can use those wastes as a fuel. Estimates are that there is enough usable energy in those nuclear wastes to provide all the power this country will use for the next 1000 years. And any waste left over from passage thru a fast reactor is of low radioactivity, easily stored and returning to background levels in 100 years or so. And fast reactors are intrinsically safe, for those who think 60 years of nuclear power without any casualties is “not safe enough.”
The article is sort of unfair to hydro power. You need a Big river with a Big watershed (or a Big snowpack) and a Big dam to make hydro solid and reliable. North America is blessed with several rivers like that, and we WERE blessed in the past with governments that had the sense to build Big dams.
I’d guess Scotland’s rivers are too short for major hydro, and it doesn’t seem to have any Big reservoirs to compensate.
Well I was just in Home Depot collecting up some obsolete 12 Volt Halogen MR-16 bits and pieces, and a chap from Solar City bails me up at the robot pay station, and asks me if my monthly PG&E bill is more than $150. So I told him gleefully that it wassn’t even as much as $100 per month, which startled him, so I added also gleefully, that i was not interested in Solar City’s inefficient solar panels, that they have to “lease”, because they can’t sell them. He told me to have a nice day.
davidmhoffer says:
“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.”
Most of the jobs created are for bureaucrats to rob Peter to pay Paul and to rob Paul to pay Peter
I have never read such dense madness packed into such a small article space. Europe is seriously bonkers, and the rest of us want to be “leaders” to show the way. Seriously, WUWTWorld?
And Germany
Germany’s wind power chaos should be a warning to the UK
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/9559656/Germanys-wind-power-chaos-should-be-a-warning-to-the-UK.html
Kev-in-Uk says:
September 29, 2012 at 12:55 pm
It actually gets better.
According to interviews conducted on NHK World news, the reactors scrammed (auto shutdown) when the quake occurred, but the operators overrode the automatic equipment since the reactor pressure was dropping so rapidly. Essentially, they bypassed the safeties.
Now, this did not cause the loss of backup power (the tsunami took care of that) but it serves to illustrate the cluster[censored] that was at play.
The most reactor-years of demonstrated reliable operation is enjoyed by the USN HEU PWR. As economies are introduced, so risks increase. U-Pick-Em.
If you guys go with four more years of President Hopey Changey, Greece on the Potomac will be an instant replay of this.
Just sayin’
GeoLurking;
Essentially, they bypassed the safeties.
>>>>>>>>>>
I wasn’t previously aware of that. Oddly enough, Three Mile Island and Chernobyl were ALSO the result of operational over ride of the safety systems. For TMI, the operators decided that the readings were “impossible” and for Chernobyl, they wanted to run an experiment that was outside the safety limits of the reactor. Which part of “outside the safety limits” they failed to understand is beyond me.
I find it difficult to think of a good reason to follow the Greeks strategy when it comes to finances.
It’s oddly reassuring when economies start ending as they should.
Fukishima damaged my family.
Seriously. At the time I worked in a nuclear facility. One of our instructors is a top tier nuclear safety training expert. He spent several days at Fukishima doing evaluations, in fact he trained some of those people. After he returned he sat in my office for 2 hours and described what was going on, what he had seen.
The next weekend we had a family dinner. My brother was going on about all the crap he’d read on internet sites. I corrected him. He argued and told me I didn’t know anything about what’s REALLY going on. Seriously. As if leftist anti-nuke sites had more “real” information than a nuclear safety training expert’s direct on-site experience.
I suggested that “you can’t fix stupid”, and ever since then our family relationship has been… um… strained.
In fact, Fukushima demonstrated that in spite of the absolute worst case scenario times 10, the safety measures (even though they were ancient and not nearly as good as what newer reactors get) worked. The containment worked. Releases were limited and relatively benign. But some people will never, ever believe that. How many people died from the explosion at the refinery a few miles away that day?
davidmhoffer says: September 29, 2012 at 3:27 pm
Which part of “outside the safety limits” they failed to understand is beyond me.
_______________________________
🙂 🙂
An institutional false-consensus bias.
Its a bit like Captain Smith believing that sailing through an ice-field at high speed is safer, because you get though it quicker.
.
After reading this story I have a few non-scientific questions:
1. If the Europeans are hard-charging to ditch all of their “green” energy stuff that is hemorrhaging money, does that mean they will start issuing university grants to “deniers”? If so, we might be able to reintroduce true skepticism to science.
2. Will the hit in their pocketbooks make the Europeans begin looking at AGW with something approaching skepticism?
3. If we pass (another) tipping point will all the AGW folks please admit it and admit that scare tactic science is best dumped in the trash? I would love to see this website and others like it dedicate space to the past tipping points and their timelines similar to the “ice free arctic sea” one on the home page. It would make a nice visual for me to show other folks when they ask me why I go against the “scientific consensus.”
Fred from Canuckustan. says:
September 29, 2012 at 3:26 pm
If you guys go with four more years of President Hopey Changey, Greece on the Potomac will be an instant replay of this.
Just sayin’
=========================================
It won’t take 4 years of Dopey Changey. I don’t know if this is fully appreciated here, but all of these energy and fuel alternatives have served to constrain economies to where they cannot grow. I’m afraid that the debt accrued, not only by Greece, but by the other southern European nations has gone beyond a point of redemption. I think Finland is prepared to pull out of the Eurozone. I think if they do Germany will follow suit, though, they don’t want to. At some point, they’ll realize they can’t float all of these nations indefinitely. Kudos to the UK for not entering the trap but, they’ve large challenges ahead as well.
The US could probably still fix their debt problem, but it won’t fix the economic ruin we’ve had in the last 5 years or so.. If and when the US gets working again, we would see all of that crap capital our Fed keeps printing come flooding the country and across our borders.
While not all of the economic problems can be laid at the feet of these stupid energy and fuel schemes, they did constrain growth when two of the largest economies desperately needed it.
2 links to the “hush-hush” maps result in “403 Forbidden” pages:
30 Sept: UK Express: THE HUSH-HUSH MAP THAT PAINTS SCOTLAND GREEN
Scotland’s familiar rugged outline is peppered with at least 535 huge wind farms – taking up an estimated three to five per cent of the total land mass of Scotland – many of them located in areas of outstanding natural beauty.
Officials at Government quango Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) published the “wind farm footprint map” last month, quietly releasing it on their website with little or no fanfare…
However, even this crowded document does not tell the whole story as it only includes wind turbines of more than 164 feet in height – twice the height of the Falkirk Wheel – and ignores hundreds of smaller projects…
However, there are 357 – almost exactly twice as many – still in the pipeline, either at the application stage or at the earlier scoping, or investigation, stage…
Meanwhile, the Scottish Government has announced a £300,000 fund to help local authorities deal with being inundated with the massive number of wind farm applications by developers…
A spokesman for the John Muir Trust: “Scots have a special connection to our landscape. It is part of heritage and perhaps in danger of being destroyed by a combination of energy corporations making huge profits from subsidies, landowners making sizeable sums of money as well as governments that just want to meet targets rather than look at the overall impact of this programme.”…
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/349057
29 Sept: BBC: Fund of £300,000 to help with rise in wind farm applications
Earlier this year Aberdeenshire Council asked for a six-month moratorium on applications for wind farms after the authority received 800 applications in 14 months…
Councils need to prove evidence of their need to secure funding…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-19772574
This whole thing should be allowed to play out to the logical end. It will be a good lesson for future generations.
Dragon’s Human says:
September 29, 2012 at 4:39 pm
After reading this story I have a few non-scientific questions:
1. If the Europeans are hard-charging to ditch all of their “green” energy stuff …….
===========================================
It isn’t that easy over there. They’ve a crazy form of government. They are quasi-autonomous. As noted above, much of these insipidly stupid “green energy” mechanism derive from mandates from the EU. Those countries have signed commitments to pursue this madness. I’m not sure how other EU countries would react if a few of them said they were done playing this horrible game. But, it would test Brussell’s authority.
Gamecock says:
September 29, 2012 at 11:37 am
“Wayne, LFTR is not proven technology. You are marketing it as if it is.”
Gamecock, I beg to differ. There is a difference between “not proven” and not fully commercialized. LFTR is proven technology. See the paper below which clearly establishes that LFT reactors have been built and operated at Oak Ridge National Laboratories in the early 1970’s. It took me less than a minute to track this paper down. If you wish to explore LFRTs further which I recommend before further posting on this subject. Further, IIRC, one was also operated for several years at the Idaho National laboratory, too. Sadly, China and India appear to be well ahead of the US in commercializing the technology.
Rosenthal, M.; Briggs, R.; Haubenreich, P., Molten-Salt Reactor Program: Semiannual Progress Report for Period Ending August 31, 1971, ORNL-4728, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
I am looking forward with much glee to the idea of rolling blackouts across the EU. Even more so if they happen in the winter so as to maximize the pain and suffering. Why? Because this is the only thing that will wake up the public and arouse them to yell at their governments louder than the green activists do.
Solar, wind and waves are proven technologies, so is LFTR. PWR and BWR are market successes.
DBCooper said:
“Now the technology is being developed by Japan, China, the UK, Russia, and private US, Czech and Australian companies.”
=======
“Being developed” means it does not exist. The great presumption that it will be developed has no historical basis. Breeding thorium to U-233 has been done in government reactors. But even at 100 times the neutron flux in power reactors, not enough was converted to be worthwhile.
With the abysmal track record, thorium breeding must be demonstrated as feasible before it should be accepted as feasible.
“And whose fault is it?” People who saw it didn’t work. The technology was the problem, not the Democrats. Nice to hear they got one thing right.