Dr. Benny Peiser at The Australian: Europe pulls the plug on its green future
Slowly but gradually, Europe is awakening to a green energy crisis, an economic and political debacle that is entirely self-inflicted.
The mainstream media, which used to encourage the renewables push enthusiastically, is beginning to sober up too. With more and more cracks beginning to appear, many newspapers are returning to their proper role as the fourth estate, exposing the pitfalls of Europe’s green-energy gamble and opening their pages for thorough analysis and debate. Today, European media is full of news and commentary about the problems of an ill-conceived strategy that is becoming increasingly shaky and divisive.
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As country after country abandons, curtails or reneges on once-generous support for renewable energy, Europe is beginning to realise that its green energy strategy is dying on the vine. Green dreams are giving way to hard economic realities.
From: The Australian http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/health-science/europe-pulls-the-plug-on-its-green-future/story-e6frg8y6-1226694405337
also here: http://www.thegwpf.org/benny-peiser-europe-pulls-plug-green-future/
(Note: for the pirates of pendant – image updated to show EU style plug – Anthony)
Related articles
- Spain Cuts Green Energy Losses (blogs.the-american-interest.com)
- After UK embraces green energy, MPs baffled as to why energy prices doubled (junkscience.com)
- Newsbytes: Green Energy Disaster Sinks Siemens CEO (wattsupwiththat.com)
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Old’un says:
August 9, 2013 at 2:12 pm
Those contributors who are wittering on about THE PLUG are devaluing the site!
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Seconded.
The only ones profiting from so-called “green energy” is Al Gore and the Wall Street Banksters and money-junkies.
Sorry about the OT, but since this morning, images on the post-body won’t show. Right-margin images show OK. Right-clicking the blank space & “load image” won’t work, but “view image” works (opens a new tab). All other sites seem fine.
Cleared Temp internet files, restarted computer, etc, to no avail. Windows 7 & using latest version of Firefox 22.0 — never had any issues before. Anyone having similar problems?
“Old’un says:
August 9, 2013 at 2:12 pm
Those contributors who are wittering on about THE PLUG are devaluing the site!”
Ah, but today I learned, thanks to a reply to a question, why our American plugs have holes in the prongs.
After the question was raised I considered Google, but then I figured that someone in the readership probably had an answer. Sure enough, five or six comments later someone replied that they slide over protrusions in the outlet, thereby helping to secure the plug. (paraphrasing)
Furthermore, since no one contradicted that answer in the next 40 to 50 comments, I would put the probability of that answer being correct at close to Rush’s 99.7% accuracy figure….*s*
In general, the quality of the comments here (present company excepted) is far higher than the average website, although the absence of greens trying to make their case is notable. I suspect that’s because they can’t withstand the torrents of logic washing over them when they choose to engage, but I could be wrong.
– – – – – – – – –
It is the nature of a fundamentalist authoritarian mentality (FAM) that once it makes a coercive intervention (e. g. ‘Green’ Energy mandates) in the marketplace then upon seeing the inevitable unacceptable distortions in the market . . . the FAM defaults to iteratively advocating further coercive interventions to attempt a remedy until you have a totally coerced society and subsequently ( a la the CCCP) collapse.
Repeal of the interventions are economically painful but much less so than societal collapse.
John
It gets better. 🙂
Plans to build more wind farms are ‘deluded’, L&G boss warns the government
By James Salmon
PUBLISHED: 11:30, 9 August 2013 | UPDATED: 12:45, 9 August 2013
Plans to build more wind farms are ‘deluded’, one of Britain’s biggest investors warned the Government.
Dr Nigel Wilson, chief executive of insurance giant Legal & General, said the controversial green energy strategy will carpet the countryside with ‘ugly modern windmills’ and result in even higher bills for hard-pressed consumers.
Wilson yesterday confirmed plans to invest more than £1billion a year on infrastructure projects including homes, roads, and airports.
No go: Dr Nigel Wilson, chief executive of insurance giant Legal & General, said he would not put a single penny into wind farms because they are too ‘inefficient’ and ‘expensive’.
No go: Dr Nigel Wilson, chief executive of insurance giant Legal & General, said he would not put a single penny into wind farms because they are too ‘inefficient’ and ‘expensive’.
But he said he would not put a single penny into wind farms because they are too ‘inefficient’ and ‘expensive’.
In an outspoken attack, Wilson said: ‘The Government is deluding itself that it is saving the world by building these ugly modern windmills.
‘This is a very expensive and inefficient way of producing electricity. I fear we will end up having to import it from elsewhere.’
He added: ‘It is sad that normal people are having to pay even more for the government’s inefficient energy strategy, on top of their already very expensive energy bills.’
The comments are a blow for the government, which is trying to persuade insurance companies to invest in big infrastructure projects, including renewable energy.
As Britain’s second biggest insurance company Legal & General runs more than £430billion of savings, investments and pensions on behalf of its customers.
In recent years the firm has invested £4billion in UK’s creaking infrastructure, with the money going to projects including house-building and solar energy.
Last night campaigners described the FTSE 100 firm’s rejection of wind farms as a ‘big blow’ to the Government’s energy strategy.
The link for my previous post re. L&G is http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-2385991/Plans-build-wind-farms-deluded.html
It isn’t just Europe.
GE scraps plans for nation’s largest solar panel plant, previously on hold in Colorado
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
August 06, 2013 – 6:41 pm EDT
http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/84b8b062a7a74dd584826a8d586660c9/US-General-Electric-Solar
SouthernGal says:
August 9, 2013 at 6:21 pm
“So they are just saying screw the world basically. That is so not cool! But I think there are two sides though. I mean look at our political leaders who don’t believe anything should be done anyway. […]”
SouthernGal, you are very naive. Many people believe that just because some technical contraption is called green, renewable and doesn’t drill in the ground where it sits, it is good for the environment.
Without further information that cannot be said.
A 100m high wind turbine for instance has, unseen by the eye, a massive concrete foundation, it has rare Earths used in its generator; it has a huge glass fibre propeller.
All of these things have to be made, transported into place, and then, when the thing sits there – oh we also need quite a lot of copper wire to connect it to the grid – it will produce energy for about 20 EUR in an hour, on average, assuming a wholesale value of a kWh of 5 Eurocents. (I don’t count the huge taxes slapped onto it to get to a consumer end price of 25 Eurocents “value”.)
It needs repairs from time to time, it will be “repowered” after 5 years, switching the house-sized generator housing and the generator for a new better bigger one and exchange the propeller for a new better bigger one etc. These activities can be financed through the subsidies the operator earns.
Now. How much energy is expended during the making, and during the repowering? In all the sub processes in making the components, assembling components to subsystems, etc.
That’s difficult to say. How can we EASILY measure the resource usage? Simple. Use the price. What does it cost to build, install and operate it, and how much VALUE does it produce on the other hand.
The higher the VALUE produced compared to the COST the more efficient it is and therefore the less resources are used for it, and therefore the most cost-efficient solution is the least harmful to the environment – as a first general rule of thumb.
Of course you see where I’m headed. Expensive sources of electricity must then be the most harmful to the environment. Windmills are more expensive than gas power plants per unit of energy produced; solar panels are even more expensive – you can clearly see this in the amounts of subsidies paid.
And more expensive simply means that also more energy has been used in the making of the wind mills and solar panels; energy that they obviously cannot recoup; otherwise subsidies would be unnecessary.
So my suggestion is; install solar and wind where it is cost efficient without subsidies. Do not install them when they can only be cost efficient with subsidies. This way, you do the best for the environment.
(Cheap solar cells from China can be made so cheaply because solar panel factories in China have access to very cheap coal powered electricity. Coal power in China is so cheap because they still do not install flue gas scrubbers. By buying solar panels from China, you contribute to the pollution in China.)
I would, BTW, love a remake of “Dallas” with the Ewings being wind and solar tycoons, bribing politicians, raking in the subsidies etc; racing around in their Teslas. Imagine the intrigue one could pack into such a soap opera. If a scriptwriter reads this: Run with it; you can have the idea!
Hehe. Shouldn’t it be “Pirates of Pedant,” not “Pirates and Pendant?”
The whole article is worth a read, thanks for posting the link at gwpf.
It pains to think what could have been achieved with the money if invested properly, the costs being also amplified by the lost of competitiveness, the energy bill being sometimes several time the cost of human resources for energy intensive products.
@Dirk H –
Yes, all renewables (except hydro, which the greenies don’t acknowledge as renewable) are not only far more costly, but also far more damaging to the environment than fossil fuels, both directly, and as you note, indirectly.
But then it isn’t about the environment – it’s about that other kind of power, the Orwellian kind, the deliberate waste of resources, the deliberate infliction of hardships, all to satisfy the CRL (criminal reactionary left) and its perverse urges. They will quite happily destroy the environment to achieve their destructive ends.
Driving through rural Ontario I see many a rich farm sporting these tax the poor political kickback solar panels.. Very soon our poorest people will be suffering under huge hydro bills.. Just today I opened the Smart (Bullshit) pamphlet from Hydro One giving me hints on how I can sit in the dark..
Criminal incompetence stealing the wood from our homefires..
gene Saklov
No the plug is European, American plugs have flat pins.
Is this “Plug-wars”? I worked at IBM as a test engineer in the 80’s testing 8100 series computers that were exported worldwide to countries with 240vac 50hz and 110vac 60hz supplies. The image is of two round solid pins, round plug, with a “keyway” (You can see on in the image a “lump”) which there will be another diametrically opposed, there is another “keyway” which looks like a groove. The earth is a pin in the socket in these types of systems. The “keyways” are to ensure correct orientation, or rather sets a standard “One Way Fits”. This type is typically used in France, Belgium etc. Now, the EU zone has several different types of plug/socket. Italy has a flat 3 pin design, which is usually in a “bakelite” case, very brittle and easily damaged. May have changed now. Having had many 110vac and 240vac shocks, some deliberately (Heh!), IMO, the best and safest plug/socket is the UK, earthed square 3 pin, insulated at the base of the pin/plug interface, design.
Lets not talk about 415vac 3 phase at 63a (UK).
Green energy is only good for the bankers, the inside traders and those with appropriate land (Sea floor owned by Royalty etc) to install such systems.
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beng says:
August 10, 2013 at 8:39 am
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Never replied to myself before, but fixed the problem — it was on my end. Needed to allow scripts from wp dot com.
The plug looks like a standard German/Austrian plug. Those two plugs may be blades, it’s hard to see, but the body of it looks very Schuko, thus very German/Austrian, where this has been standard for a long time. Shall I go and take a photo?
As for the topic at hand, well duh. There were companies in Germany already saying that, if the price for electricity would just go up one cent, they’d either have to close down or leave Germany (aluminum producers mostly).
PS: invest in alternatives? Sure
In alternatives that work and don’t 100% rely on a non-linear, chaotic system like the weather. Aka alternatives that work and are actually reliable and efficient. Wind and solar are neither.
Who is heavily investing in the development of actual alternative systems, like, let’s say, thorium reactors?
It’s not the EU. It’s not the US.
It’s China.
Janice Moore says:
August 9, 2013 at 9:35 pm
David Hoffer — GREAT refutation above of Southern Gal (and of Tao Babe and her solar power silliness (same gal? hm) — on the Friday Funny thread, today).
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Derision is not becoming to you. Please refrain from smear tactics unless they are being directed at you. I am not here to fight with you (and I actually don’t care to because I would like to reserve my energy to doing more important things). I am simply here to understand this side of the argument. There are extremes on both sides, both of which I would prefer not to dialogue with, since I do believe the truth lies, not at the extremes, but more likely somewhere in the middle.
Solar power is not silly. We may be early in the process (and the process may have its flaws and foibles) but at least we are exploring all aspects of energy and not being stuck to one type or another. Any spacecraft outside of Earth requires solar harvesting (among other types of energy development which, by necessity, will have nothing to do with oil or natural gas) to have enough energy to maintain operations. We must continue solar exploration because I would like to one day see humanity break free from this rock and explore beyond our little cradle of a home world.
I don’t like to get boxed into one way of thinking. That is why I am not insisting on an all-or-nothing. I am simply suggesting an also-and-concurrent-with attitude. Alongside with all the other types of energy we use, we also need to develop solar energy for various other applications. Heck, keep poking at zero-point energy too and see where that leads. You never know…we may be able to successfully harness zero-point energy for energy generation in the near future.
Well said taobabe. I admit I’m not the world’s expert on everything I’ve ever read, so it’s a little frustrating to see that kind of attitude sometimes. I’m here because I’m *trying* to learn more.
Solar power is very silly. The (slightly) hidden costs, like exotic metals and materials and the connectivity problems exceed any benefit even if the panels sold for one cent per square meter.
Aaron, thanks. I am also trying to learn more. I have no answers for anybody—only more questions.
Brian, it’s not always about the monetary costs. Sometimes, things are cheap for a reason. In any case, when you have something space-bound (or roaming around Mars), there is no other viable (short term) solution but solar. Tell me, what’s less silly than solar energy for space exploration?
How about the WAVE HUBS in Cornwall http://www.wavehub.co.uk/ and Scotland http://www.emec.org.uk/
Built at vast expense and LYING IDLE because all of the so called “leading developers” of wave energy devices are nothing more than investment scams.
They will NEVER put a wave widget in the water but they are very good at putting the money down their trousers.
Not only that they are all SCAM companies but wave power is NOT the reliable 24/7/365 that the wave wankers claim.
Most of the time it is either too small to produce any power or too large which spells DESTRUCTION for the idiotic widgets.
On the rocks…. http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/10_billion_more_where_that_came_from/