From The GWPF and Dr. Benny Peiser
Expensive Green Energy A ‘Bad Gamble’ As Gas Price Drops
Families face paying up to £40 extra each year for wind and solar farms to meet climate change targets after the government revised its energy price forecasts. The subsidy required for each unit of renewable electricity will rise after the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) conceded that gas was much cheaper than it had predicted. A glut of gas on the world market means gas-fired power stations have become cheaper to run, making wind and solar farms comparatively even more expensive. –Tim Webb & Ben Webster, The Times, 3 October 2014
Peter Atherton, energy analyst at Liberum Capital, said that green energy was “always a hell of a gamble and now looks like an increasingly bad gamble”. “Year after year [energy secretary] Ed Davey has been banging on that one of the core reasons [for backing green energy] is to protect ourselves against inevitably high and volatile fossil fuel prices. Now their own forecasts are saying fossil fuel prices are going to be very affordable,” he said. –Emily Gosden, The Daily Telegraph, 3 October 2014
The impact of rising household energy bills will be greatly reduced by climate change policies which could save consumers around £166 by 2020, according to the energy and climate secretary, Ed Davey. “Global gas price hikes are squeezing households. They are beyond any government’s control. The analysis shows that our strategy of shifting to alternatives like renewables and of being smarter with how we use energy is helping those who need it most to save money on their bills,” he said. –John Vidal, The Guardian, 27 March 2013
In a bizarre statement, energy and climate change secretary Chris Huhne told the House of Commons that his [green energy] policies mean consumers will actually be better off. Dr Benny Peiser, of the Global Warming Foundation, said Mr Huhne’s reassurances were ‘political spin’. Government policy is based on an assumption that gas prices will continue to rise, but Dr Peiser said the price could fall. He said: ‘Prices are likely to come down very significantly.’ –Sean Poulter, Daily Mail 24 November 2011
By 2020, British Energy & Climate Change Secretary Chris Huhne routinely insists, families and businesses in the United Kingdom will be better off – despite his plan to shift the country towards expensive renewable energy. His claim is based on the assumption that the price of fossil fuels can only go up as we “run out” of oil and gas supplies. As a result, energy prices will inevitably shoot into the stratosphere, making very costly renewables competitive in the future. I am afraid Huhne’s assumptions are misguided. In reality, we are in the middle of a global natural gas revolution. Indeed, gas prices have dropped by half in the United States in the last two years as a result of a glut in cheap shale gas. –Benny Peiser, Public Service Europe, 19 January 2012
As we look at UK energy policy now, DECC has had the country make a massive financial gamble on the back of a prediction that was wholly unfounded and which has been obviously so for many years. We now learn that DECC has also distributed this astonishing wave of public money in a manner that can only be described as monstrously incompetent, and which many will assume to be monstrously corrupt.
Any reasonable person would close down DECC right now and lay off all the environmentalists who staff it. –Andrew Montford, Bishop Hill, 3 October 2014
Global warming is a ‘public health emergency’ that will cause thousands of deaths worldwide, a leading medical journal warns. The BMJ’s editor Dr Fiona Godlee calls on the World Health Organisation to declare the issue a public health emergency – putting it on a par with the current ebola outbreak in West Africa. Dr Benny Peiser of the Global Warming Policy Forum accused the BMJ report of being needlessly alarmist. ‘The World Health Organisation would become a global laughing stock if they were to follow the ridiculously over-the-top demands of a green alarmist editor. There is a real disconnect between what they are saying and the reality.’ –Sophie Borland and Ben Spencer, Daily Mail, 2 October 2014
The GWPF is a fossil fuel lobby organisation which was recently instructed by the Charity Commission to stop using its charity status for political campaigning.
Renewables are expanding worldwide. Some countries (eg Portugal, Scotland) are producing up to half their electricity from renewables.
Yes it will cost money to develop renewables – just as it does for every other form of energy.
Perhaps those who spend so much time attacking renewables on cost might like to look at nuclear. UK taxpayers face a bill of around £70 billion to decommission the Magnox reactors. That’s £70 billion to take down power stations no longer producing any power.
Where are the references for your misinformation?
Renewables will be useless for eternity – they are grossly inefficient and they are expanding worldwide because half-wits run the asylum and fast-breeder greedy greencrats can’t resist the taking money from half-wits.
James,
“renewables” are about to collapse world wide. Their very survival depends of the AGW hoax, and the death of the hoax is inevitable. No sensible nation sent their leaders to the last UN AGW fund-raiser. The rubinesque diva is practising her scales and the buses are warming up. This sorry performance is all but over.
The first to fall will be the Big Wind subsidy farmers. Big Wind faces the worst problems of all.
Their product –
-delivers weak intermittent power
-is location limited
-has no effective power storage means
-requires back up from other power plants
-is mechanically complicated
-spreads maintenance requirements over a vast geographic area
-causes health problems in humans
-kills wildlife
-is uneconomic
-can only survive with favourable laws and government subsidies
Given the abundance of shale gas there is only one possible justification for these bird blending subsidy farms and that is the threat of CAGW. CO2 reduction from wind turbines has not been demonstrated and besides every climate model based of the flawed assumption of a net radiative GHE has failed..
Other “renewable” technologies, such as PV solar and bio-fuels may survive the collapse of the AGW hoax as they have other justifications. But the crippling negatives associated with Big Wind means they are going down with the hoax. There is no AGW, so there is no future for Big Wind. Billions have been “invested” and there is now no hope of a return.
I would expect that Big Wind will spend millions more on propaganda to keep their sorry subsidy farming game going as long as they can, but it is a dead end. For Big Wind there is no way out. No CAGW = no Big Wind. It is that simple. They can’t survive without the hoax.
In Australia the carbon tax of the Labor/Green socialist alliance has been repealed and the Renewable Energy Target, the life blood of the subsidy farmers, is under review. This means that current subsidies may be subject to “grandfathering” and no further subsidies offered for Big Wind.
Killing future subsidies is key to killing this fraudulent industry even if subsidies for existing follies continue. If no new turbines are being built, the cost of replacement parts and maintenance will climb as economies of scale are reduced. Because gearbox and blade problems are so chronic, failures will continue but maintenance will become uneconomic. Without the prospect of future subsidies, those machines that fail will stay dead.
Without the prospect of future subsidies to back their “business”, the current subsidy farmers will soon be unable to afford capital. No one will lend to them. They won’t even be able to afford to properly dismantle the rusting towers of shame. While there are desirable recyclables such as steel copper and neodymium, no one wants to deal with the blades and concrete bases. These towering monuments to the inanity of the AGW believers are going to be a reminder of their burning shame for a good while to come.
The future of Big Wind –
http://toryardvaark.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/abandoned_wind_farm_hawaii.jpg
But to every cloud….
We will get to see the AGW believers begging for the removal of wind turbines and their shame. Delicious 😉
Konrad:
I would like to share your confidence in the imminent collapse of renewables, but I think you underestimate the staying power of the “sustainability” zeitgeist once it has metastasized through all levels of government and corporate culture. Both public and private sectors are now infested with people whose jobs depend on maintaining these initiatives. When a major company CEO states publicly and to his board of directors that green energy is bull***t and he is not going to waste another corporate dollar on it and is not forced out as a result, then it will be time to break out the champaign.
There is some hope Tony Abbott in Australia will provide this catalyzing moment but it hasn’t happened yet.
Alan,
The US is labouring under the curse of Obarmaclese, but the tide is turning in the UK. It is Australia where things are going to move quite quickly now.
The issue is “capital flight”. Because Big Wind is essentially a pyramid selling scheme, or a “bitcoin game” if you like. When there is going to be no next layer at the bottom of the pyramid, the scheme collapses. Revising the RET and grandfathering current subsidies means no next layer.
The subsidy farmers will of course pump further millions into propaganda. The global anti shale/coal seam gas movement proved that. The anti gas push has failed, so now the focus will be back on CO2 in a big way. The current signals are that “ocean acidification” will be the next big propaganda push. They believe you can still demonise CO2 in a cooling world. It’s actually a propaganda dead end, the warming meme is too entrenched. (Not that this will stop the “green” groups writhing in ecstasy in the trough of Big Wind cash, soaked as it is in the blood of endangered species).
The problem is Big Wind can’t use the “sustainability” thing without CO2. Big Wind is simply too costly and environmentally damaging compared to shale gas.
For the professional left, particularly protest groups in Australia it is going to be a double blow. First they are facing the permanent shame of the AGW propagandist, no one will pay heed to their next “cause”. Second the money is going to dry up. Considerable funding for these groups comes from the union movement. Currently the union movement is is being “torn a new one” for misuse of member funds and standover payments from business. Their back up source for slush was the money-go-round involving “investment” of union controlled pension funds in, you guessed it, Big Wind.
Normal fund managers will flee swiftly. The unions, being wholly corrupt, will try to push on with those “investments”, but in Australia there are set rules for super fund investment. Very shortly Big Wind will no longer meet the criteria. The plug is about to be pulled.
“I lost my ass in wind power” – so said billionaire Boone Pickens during a TV interview last year. He invested in a Big way, erecting a series of wind farms beginning in 2008.
Big Wind has flopped and it is running out of Big Suckers as the smart money runs the other way and the dumb money gets blown away. Big wind is a green swindle, as the report on 60 Minutes documented earlier this year. Big Wind is green? Not really, but money is- no more suckers.
From the Weekend Australian –
“Investment” in subsidy farming collapsed 78% just on discussion of a report? It begins…. Bwahahaha!
AHH, yes, Spain comes to mind – the home of the midnight Sun.
James Abbott appears to be a paid shill acting on behalf of the UK Green Party whose policies are designed deliberately to send the UK back to the days before technology was used to improve everyone’s lives. These people will, of course, exempt themselves from any of the evil effects of their anti-human policies. They do after all, believe themselves to be better than the rest of us, and therefore they reserve to themselves the right of dictators throughout history – don’t do as we do, do as we say (on pain of death).
http://greenparty.org.uk/people/james-abbott.html
Of course, this could be a different one, although if so it would be an understandable error.
James Abbott. Only those ‘liarists’ with a vested interest in protecting the squillions they’ve already personally thrown at renewables (pretending all along that it will save the planet from warming up a couple of degrees by 2020) continue to insist that their green energy get-rich-quick dream is the way forward. It’s not.
3 bazillions equals 1 squillion. It’s a lot.
I have to question your statement of 70 billion pounds to decommission the reactors.
I looked it up and they are talking 12.6 billion to decommission something like twenty reactors and these are first generation reactors that are sixty years old. Considering how poor the design was, that does not seem excessive at a per reactor cost, and I have to think that they have generated far in excess of that in power over their lifespans.
If they were not setting aside fees into a fund from the sale of power over their lifespan that is the fault of politics not the reactors.
It’s a rare treat to read a comment here where every single assertion is wrong. But, as part of my policy of not following trolls down every rabbit-hole (which is what they want), I won’t bite, James. You remind me very much of Chandra and BBD, who used to infest Bishop Hill before the denizens and the boss got sick of their endless thread derailments.
TYoke says: October 3, 2014 at 9:15 pm
“http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/fuels-higher-calorific-values-d_169.html
Of course, more CO2 is produced per pound of coal than pound of carb.
Carbs C6H12O6 + 6O2 –> 6H2O + 6CO2 Combustion produces 6 CO2 per 180g fuel
Coal C + O2 –> CO2 Combustion produces 1 CO2 per 12g fuel
That means somewhere on the order of 2 and a half times as much CO2 is produced per unit of bituminous coal heat as for carb heat.”
But let’s look a bit more closely at your equations. Take the formula for your carbohydrate. Remember that the definition of a carbohydrate is that the hydrogen and oxygen atoms in each molecule are in the same proportion as in water. So we can rewrite:
C6H12O6 = 6C(H2O). Then 6C(H2O) + 6O2 => 6CO2 + 6H2O.
It is clear that the only energy derived from this is the combination of carbon with oxygen, the quantity of water involved does not release heat in the burning of the carbohydrate. Eliminate the water from the equation and you have 6C + 6O2 = 6CO2.
However, when the coal is burnt your 6C =72 units of mass.
When the carbohydrate is burnt C6H12O6 = 180 units of mass.
Result is that you have to burn two and a half times as much carbohydrate to get the same amount of heat as you would from burning coal.
Again, when you burn coal, your heat goes into CO2. When you burn carbohydrate your heat goes into CO2 and H20. You have twice as much gas going through the boilers. Same heat, twice as much gas, so the gas temperature is probably rather lower for the mixture than for the pure CO2 output. This means you have to have extra fuel to get the designed temperatures. Waste! And you will notice that you need two and a half times as many trains to carry the fuel, More Waste! But because the density of wood chips is probably half that of coal, you will have to have five times as many trains because the wagons will only be able to carry half the mass of fuel. More Waste!
Burning wood is good for a backyard barbeque, but as for burning wood in a modern power station designed to burn coal, it is insanity.
Well said, could not have said it better myself. Shame these people simply don’t understand. Another factor however is in the harvest and transport of trees from the USA to DRAX. More waste…and transport ships use a very dirty form of diesel in international waters.
You are correct. Coal with a higher water content gets a lower sale price for this reason.
The wood chips also include a large mass of water (ex-tree sap) that must be physically heated past boiling before the wood actually burns. The heat to boil out this water is also a waste that needs to be added to the chemical losses above. You can see this sap boiling out if you put a log on a fire.
(The more dry the wood chips and bark are, the less water has to be heated, and the greater the efficiency. But, the drier the wood, the more time it takes to dry it in the sun (more money!), or the more heat you need back at the chip facility to heat the wood mass back there (more money).
Pay me now, or pay me later.
I’m sure you see, your expansion of my comments is for the most part, not inconsistent with my post. My only real point was that for equivalent heat produced, coal produces more CO2 than carbs. I did not address the weight or cost of fuel used or transported, and I did not address the temperature of the combusted gases. Further, though I did not address the point, I have nothing particularly against coal consumption. CO2 is plant food, and it is at least arguably the case that we would be better off with more CO2 in the atmosphere.
Having said that, I am not necessarily persuaded of the importance of the reduced temperature of the combusted gases for carbohydrates. My own understanding is that the working upper temperature in conventional power plants is for the most part set by safety and metallurgical concerns, not just theoretical Carnot heat engine efficiency. It was my impression that the upper working temperature used in either coal or wood burning power plants is well below the max temperature achievable for (dry) carbohydrate combustion.
As to Konrad’s comment, higher water content in the coal will of course reduce the calories/wt of that coal, and consequently the value per pound. The same is obviously true for wood or any other bio-fuel. And of course, if water content is TOO high, the max combustion temperature could be reduced to an unsatisfactory level and your objection about low combustion temperatures would become a determinate factor.
One of the things that is poorly understood when value of renewables is assessed in comparison with traditional fuels is how vital an independent fuel supply is. In Germany they understand this well being subject to the whims of Putin who can turn off their supply of gas at any time. We know that much of our oil comes from highly unstable regimes in the middle east which can implode at any time. Renewables are uneconomic on a purely financial basis, but on a security basis they are worth their weight in gold. Countries like the US who have their own oil supply are not overly concerned by these issues, but in western and central Europe it’s a critical factor. If we explore all energy production including fracking, wind generation, PV, Tidal, Hydro and Nuclear we will be laying down a secure future for our children.If we rely on foreign dictators to act nicely and supply cheap energy we will surely come to grief.
Gareth Phillips
October 4, 2014 at 12:57 am
“Renewables are uneconomic on a purely financial basis, but on a security basis they are worth their weight in gold”
The concrete foundation of a 5 MW wind turbine easily weighs 800 metric tonnes, assuming 1200 USD/ounce Gold price that’s 28 billion USD per wind turbine.
How much do those foundations weigh when the wind does not blow, I wonder.
Gareth,
the “energy security” argument with PV and Big Wind “hidden in the mix” won’t work. There is no “save” for the subsidy farmers there.
There is no excuse for the subsidy farmers. The green policies and Big Wind propaganda dollars are a major contributing factor to the delay in fracking, resistance to nuclear and energy insecurity in Europe. The subsidy farmers and their bird blenders must be eliminated.
Sorry DirkH, I’d assumed everyone had studied English and understood the concept of a metaphor.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/09/19/laki-caused-1783-could-icelands-bardarbunga-volcano-trigger-another-year-without-a-summer/#comment-1741826
We predicted global cooling, starting by 2020-2030, in an article published on Sept. 1. 2002.
The following post is from 2013:
I fear for the future of Britain and its people.
An Open Letter to Baroness Verma – please see:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/10/31/blind-faith-in-climate-models/#comment-1462890
Well its interesting just how entrenched some people’s views are on renewables that they cannot even accept stone wall facts.
Renewables are expanding worldwide, they work, though efficiencies clearly vary.
Even if you are fundamentally opposed to renewables and don’t care how much carbon we put in the atmosphere, you need to explain how we provide energy in the centuries to come from fossil fuels that are by definition finite and are going to become increasingly expensive to extract.
Mr Green Genes you expose your utter ignorance of reality. For a start, I don’t get paid anything by the Green Party. Greens strongly support sustainable technologies – try IS for an organisation that wants to send us all back to the dark ages. As for your dictators jibe, its pathetic. Greens utterly oppose totalitarian regimes and dictators and are strong supporters of grassroots democracy.
Many contributors to this thread seem oblivious re the differences of scale that renewables offer. Yes there are legitimate debates about huge solar farms or wind turbines built in the wrong places, but what about micro and community scale renewables ? I would have thought that given their other opinions, many of the contributors to WUWT would support the reduced dependence on big business that domestic and community scale renewables offer
We have a biomass system and solar PV here. Our net electricity and heating costs from spring to autumn are zero. Those that say renewables don’t work just don’t know what they are talking about.
But isn’t it the case that wind farms need back up – so called spinning reserve – because wind can switch off of its own volition? If that is indeed the case, then how do wind farms save fossil fuels if you have to keep gas fired spinning reserve? Solar pv may have a future, but wind farms? There are just too many problems.
You support Democracy.
Does that include allowing people to make up their own minds about what power source they want? The Liberal government allowed protestors to influence them and shut down two under construction Gas Plants in an area where they were at risk of losing four seats in a coming election.
On the other hand when communities in the north, where they had no seats, protested the construction of large wind farms they were called Nimbys and told to shut up, we know what we are doing.
In the meantime the cost of canceling those gas plants is hovering around a billion dollars.
I’m a big supporter of individuals, or groups of individuals using renewable to get off the grid, but to date I have seen no indication that they are competitive in any area with a good dependable base load. They are far more practical in areas where getting power is hard, and when you do it is unreliable.
You say your net electricity and heating costs are zero for three quarters of the year. Tell me, how did you manage to build this set up for nothing?
Frankly that sounds like the sort of math our government uses. And the argument often made in favor of ‘free’ solar and wind.
We heated my family home with wood, and my dad built a water circulation system that ran through our wood furnace. We heated the house and our water for zero cost for the same period you are talking about, because we were cutting dead fall off the local marshes and our own wood lot.
That is, If you did not count the hundreds of hours of labor my dad put in building the system and with us cutting the wood, splitting the wood, hauling the wood out of the bush, by tractor and snowmobile, the gas they used, the maintenance on that equipment, etc.
and how many people have access to beaver marshes they can harvest and their own 120 acre wood lots?
James Abbot:
Your own private wind turbine is just fine with me; solar panels, too. Biomass? I guess you mean burning wood for heat. Well, wood smoke is poisonous, please do not pollute my air with wood smoke it makes me ill.
And wind turbines kill birds and I like birds. I prefer them to wind turbines. Wind turbines make noise – quality of life issue; I really do not like noise.
You would kill the birds, pollute the air and disturb my peace for the sake of CO2, which you have been taught to hate. Your hatred of this substance upon which all life depends is unreasonable. You say that it causes warming but the most recent data show that it does not.
James,
some renewables show promise but those with no storage capacity are a serious problem at large scale. Some without storage, such as solar thermal pre-hearting or pre-compressing of air to gas turbines can also be useful.
We can move forward to a future involving cleaner technologies, but the subsidy farming games must end. Further, any activist, journalist or politician who ever used the “D” word to vilify AGW sceptics must be removed from any further public influence. They caused the problem and cannot be part of any future solutions. Trust is frangiable.
🙂
Ahem, I’ve read your manifesto. It’s all aboput high taxes, high government spending, nationalisation etc. That is so far from your view as expressed above as to be laughable. To claim to be in favour of democracy and at the same time be such enthusiastic fans of the anti-democratic EU is displaying double think of epic proportions.
Most people do not want much of their lives to be controlled by a government – any government, let alone one in the hands of a party who would espouse such policies as those in view on your website.
And for the record, yes, I do support such local initiatives as “community scale renewables” etc., but here’s the difference between us. You and your party view them as as end in themselves, something to be forced on the local community for idealogical reasons with no regard for the costs, as you would pile subsidy on subsidy to make them appear economical, without regard to the source of such subsidies (but here I go back to my original sentence about your party being in favour of high taxation). In my community, the Parish Council which I lead is very mindful that nothing is cost free: subsiding otherwise hopelessly uneconomic projects would simply increase the cost to the many pensioners who live here, but in an underhand fashion.
Face it – the whole matter of the demonisation of CO₂ is entirely political and has nothing to do with science, something which has been amply demonstrated by (if nothing else) the refusal of the temperature to rise for 18 years.
I wonder what the net energy balance and total emissions footprint is, on wood grown in the US, cut down and transported to a factory in the US, processed into wood pellets in the US, then shipped across the world … to be burned as energy ….
James Abbott says:
The GWPF is a fossil fuel lobby organisation…
Renewables are expanding worldwide….
…might like to look at nuclear…
If it were not for your constant non sequitur posts, you wouldn’t have much to say.
Try to keep one thought in mind when commenting. It makes things easier on the rest of us.
‘K? Thx bye.