The Children’s Coalition’s insane war on natural gas
By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
On the very evening when the first October snow in 74 years was falling outside in Parliament Square, the Mother of Parliaments went gaga and nodded through the Climate Change Act 2008 – aptly described as the least justifiable and most expensive law ever to be inflicted on the British people –with only three gallant dissenters. The majority was one of the largest for any Act of Parliament.
Now the red herrings are coming home to roost. The staggering cost of the near-universal scientific illiteracy to which half a century of Marxist State education has reduced even the governing class is becoming all too painfully apparent.
“Ed” Davey, the daftly-titled “Secretary of State for Climate Change”, a “Liberal” “Democrat” [a.k.a. loony-Left] cabinet minister in the Children’s Coalition which – thanks in no small part to its suicidal climate policies – has run up a larger debt in five years than all previous British Governments added together, has just announced the kiddiwinks’ latest certifiable policy.
Beyond-bankrupt Britain – once the world’s economic powerhouse – has become the world’s economic madhouse. For “Ed” is going to abolish the use of natural gas in the industries and homes of Britain. Just like that.
Target for completion of this latest insanity – less than two decades from today. About half the nation cooks or heats its home with gas. By Government fiat, those households will soon be compelled to switch to far more costly and far less efficient electric heating, whether they can afford it or not.
Naturally, there will also be a huge capital cost to overstretched taxpayers, as the nation’s extensive and expensive gas network is pointlessly ripped up, as the gas-fired power stations that have only recently replaced a large part of our coal-fired power generation network are torn down, and as the nation is carpeted with useless, bird-blending, bat-blatting windmills. Already, 60% of Scotland’s landscape has windmills scarring it.
The tiny tots are going to expand the network of dismal, unstable, loss-making windmills massively. To pay for it, they will charge the average household an extra $400 a year on top of the massive energy price hikes they have already inflicted.
They are also going to install 1.2 GW of new nuclear capacity each year (the equivalent of two nuclear submarines). But – insanity upon insanity – the low-spec, civilian-grade reactors they are going to buy from Hitachi cost six times as much as the high-spec, military-grade Rolls Royce reactors in our Trident submarines.
When I asked Rolls Royce whether, in these circumstances, they planned to enter the thrusting new UK market for civilian nuclear electricity generation, I got a curt – and understandable – No. The pinstripe-suited voice quivering down the telephone conveyed ill-concealed impatience at the increasingly bizarre conduct of the Children’s Coalition.
What is worse, not only gas but also gasoline is to be phased out. All cars are to become electric by the 2040s. Just like that.
On past form, I had anticipated something as half-witted as this. In September’s Energy and Environment, in a paper outlining the many errors of the IPCC, I included a short account of the “economics” of the toddlers’ subsidies to electric vehicles. It has been much repeated, though on the evidence I don’t suppose anybody in the Romper Room at the Department of Climate Madness has learned to read yet, so they won’t have seen it. Here it is.
Deferment of the date of onset of net welfare loss
There has been no global warming this century. If the warming were to resume immediately at the mean rate of 0.14 K decade–1 observed in the past 30 years, by 2035 only 0.28 K warming would have occurred. If the warming rate were to rise by as much as half thereafter and were to persist throughout the remainder of the century, warming of little more than 1.1 K would have occurred by 2100.
Since 0.9 K warming has occurred since 1750 (Central England Temperature Record), the 2 K threshold beyond which we are told a net climate-related cost begins to arise may well not be crossed until the end of this century. A slow rate of warming is less damaging than a rapid rate, so even after 2100 the net disbenefit from the warming may be insignificant.
Should precautions be taken in any event?
Whether mitigation measures should be attempted in any event is an economic question, answered by investment appraisal. The UK’s $8333-per-auto subsidy for electric cars will serve as an example. The two initial conditions for the appraisal are the fraction of global CO2 emissions a mitigation measure is intended to abate, and the cost of the measure.
Typical gasoline-powered auto engines are approximately 27% efficient. Typical fossil-fueled generating stations are 50% efficient, transmission to end user is 67% efficient, battery charging is 90% efficient and the auto’s electric motor is 90% efficient, so that the fuel efficiency of an electric car is also 27%. However, the electric car requires 30% more power per mile traveled to move the mass of its batteries.
CO2 emissions from domestic transport account for 24% of UK CO2 emissions, and cars, vans, and taxis represent 90% of road transport (DfT, 2013). Assuming 80% of fuel use is by these autos, they account for 19.2% of UK CO2 emissions. Conversion to electric power, 61% of which is generated by fossil fuels in the UK, would abate 39% of 19.2% (i.e. 7.5%) of UK CO2 emissions.
However, the battery-weight penalty would be 30% of 19.2% of 61%: i.e. 3.5% of UK CO2 emissions. The net saving from converting all UK cars, vans, and taxis to electricity, therefore, would be 4% of UK CO2 emissions, which are 1.72% of global CO2 emissions, abating 0.07% of global CO2 emissions of 2 ppmv yr–1, or 0.00138 ppmv. Assuming 400 μatm concentration at year end on business as usual, forcing abated by the subsidy for converting all UK cars to electricity would be 5.35 ln[400/(400-0.00138)], or 0.00002 W m–2, which, multiplied by the Planck parameter λ0 = 0.31 K W–1 m2, gives 0.000006 K warming abated by the subsidy.
The cost to the UK taxpayer of subsidizing the 30,000 electric cars, vans, and taxis bought in 2012 was a flat-rate subsidy of $8333 (£5000) for each vehicle and a further subsidy of about $350 (£210) per year in vehicle excise tax remitted, a total of $260.5 million. On that basis, the cost of subsidizing all 2,250,000 new autos sold each year (SMMT, 2013), would be $19.54 bn.
Though the longevity of electric autos is 50% greater than that of internal-combustion autos, the advantage is more than canceled by the very large cost of total battery replacement every few years. No allowance for this extra cost is made. Likewise, the considerable cost of using renewable energy to bring down the UK’s fossil-fueled generation fraction from the global mean 67% to 61% is not taken into account, though, strictly speaking, an appropriate share of the cost of “renewable” electricity generation should be assigned to electric vehicles.
Dividing the $19 bn annual cost by the warming abated gives a unit abatement cost of $3400 tn K–1. Abating the 0.013 K projected warming over the study period by global methods of equivalent unit cost would thus cost $45 tn, or approaching $6500 a year per head of global population, or almost two-thirds of $71 tn global annual GDP.
Stern (2006) wrote that the cost of allowing the then-projected 3 K warming to occur over the 21st century would be 0-3% of global GDP. IPCC (2013, WGII) puts the cost at 0.2-2% of GDP. Assuming that 1 K 20th-century global warming would cost as much as 0.5% of GDP (in fact so small a warming would cost nothing), global mitigation by methods of equivalent unit cost to the UK’s subsidy program for electric vehicles would be 128 times costlier than adaptation.
In general, the cost of mitigation is 1-2 orders of magnitude greater than that of adaptation (Monckton of Brenchley, 2013). Affordable measures are ineffective: effective measures are unaffordable. Too little mitigation is achieved at far too great a cost. Since the premium is 10-100 times the cost of the risk insured, the precaution of insurance against any net-adverse manmade global warming is not recommended.
Footnote: When I visited the Department of Climate Change in 2010 to meet the House of Lord Minister, Lord Marland, I asked him and his chief number-cruncher, Professor David Mackay, to let me see their calculations demonstrating how much global warming the Department’s insane policies would prevent in the coming decades, and at what cost per Kelvin abated.
There was a strangled, aghast silence. The Permanent Secretary looked at his watch and then fiddled with his tie. The Minister tossed a cricket ball up and down in aimless embarrassment. Professor Mackay said, “Er, ah, mphm …” [I’d never heard that 19th-century Scottish playing-for-time interjection before] “… mphm, er, that is, well, we, ah, ugh, mphm – um, oof, we’ve never done any such calculation.”
I turned to the Minister and said, “Can I take it, Minister, that your policies are based on blind faith alone?” Seems they still are.
There is a good commentary in the National Post, related to this subject. Worth reading
Making the world a better place — by using more fossil fuels
(Reprinted from THE MORAL CASE FOR FOSSIL FUELS)
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2014/12/22/alex-epstein-making-the-world-a-better-place-by-using-more-fossil-fuels/
All UK political parties are in agreement. We must destroy what is left of our industry, and allow many, many more people to die of cold, just so that the politicians feel good about “climate change”. Science – who cares? This hasn’t been a scientifically lead country since the 1800s.
I have always thought that it should be a felony offense to use the highest quality form of on demand energy; electricity, to recreate the lowest form of energy life; namely “heat”, which is the waste product effluent, after all useful energy applications have been satisfied.
Thermodynamics teaches us, that we can only recover a fraction of the energy in heat (noun) and bring it back to life as a some useful form such as the electricity that powers our information based economies.
Apart from biological regeneration, direct PV conversion to electricity, is the only non-wasteful usage of high quality incoming solar EM radiant energy. The rest is first converted to heat to then endure the wrath of the Carnot inefficiency.
Well when the roof caves in MofB, you are welcome over here.
We colonials of the South Pacific, would also be pleased to have you, to maintain sanity on the crusty side of the pizza as well.
G
and just where did your magical electricity come from ? unicorns perhaps … the only felony here is on logic and by you …
Magical? KaiserDerden, you’ve mistermed ‘George E. Smith’s’ words purposely to malign his very accurate insight. Then you follow that with a baseless rant that sounds like you’ve practiced it in the mirror.
Lord Monckton and George E. Smith have nailed the lunacy of the ‘Department of Climate Madness’ in Great Britain. Great Britain’s DCM are the ones treating electricity as available via fantasy and ‘magic’; at horrifically high costs to the citizens of Great Britain with near zero overall benefits.
Come back again, KaiserDerden, when you have science to discuss.
Not all. UKIP has a sane (-ish) energy policy.
+1
It’s a democracy. Blame the electorate, my friend.
Monckton’s reference to children is apt.
Democracy will save us. Vote ukip.
So when Scotland was voting for independence the other month, did anyone there understand that all that oil and gas they had was going to lose its one biggest market? At the very least it shows how the English really don’t care what happens to the Scots! And the Scots still voted to trust the English politicians.
What does it take for people to stop acting on blind faith, and stop voting for crooks, and stop being loyal to uneconomical socialist/communistic systems?
We have a corrupt scientic community that is in cahoots with corrupt governments. The scientific community fabricates the science for the politicians to justify and criminally siphon taxes from the masses. The legal and justice system is used to enforce laws to protect these criminals and to turn honest hard work citizens into unjustful criminals when they rebel against these unjust laws.
Is all this really about just poor science, and miss understood leaders of our community that come up with misplaced decisions? Or have we come to a point in time, when like all socio-econo-political systems have been given enough time to age, the negative forces of entropy, that is, dishonesty, unethical behaviour, greed and jealousy have been allowed to fester and grow to such an extent and float to the top of all our major institutions that they are all now working in tandem and pushing our society, our world, to collapse!
The problem is not just that our science or scientific community has run amok. We have serious problems at the upper echelons of all our major educational, government and justice institutions. The arrogant elite are now conspiring together on such a large scale, that the humble citizen class doesn’t have enough of an economic base to support the ravenous arrogant elite class’ greed. This is how societies collapse, when the top is to big and heavy for the bottom to carry.
There are only two ways forward. Let it all run its coarse till collapse and we will have decades of depression thereafter and then eventual rise, which means the present living generations will have to suffer, or massive change, through the ballot box or rebellion.
Today nobody has the stomach for rebellion, at least not until they are starving or freezing, or both. So that leaves the ballot box. Some call for UKIP, but will they really do anything different. If they win government, they will still have to contend with the corrupt legal system that will support the old guard.
Lord Monckton, the Climate Change Act of 2008, is a mute issue. The problem is the entire system we have. There is no accountability for decisions and actions; scientists write wishful ideas with no scientific base and no standards to live up to, legislative and justice systems write laws in passive legalese where no accountability is made clear, politicians use these inadequate science and legal arguments to push the might of law enforcement and military on the powerless.
If you want a better and more just world Lord Monckton, you need to direct your attention to your Class. Because voting will not change anything, not while the system itself is corrupt. All that will happen, even if you vote say for all those good intending UKIPers, you will put “honest good” people into a corrupt system,and in a corrupt system, it doesn’t matter what you do or whom you put into the system, the system will corrupt you.
The problem is not just the science, or the politics, or the judges, yes they are corrupt, but nothing can be done until you fix the system. The science, politics, educators and judges are just the symptom.
Its the system that needs fixing….we need more accountability in the system.
“Lord Monckton, the Climate Change Act of 2008, is a mute issue.”
Mute or moot?
“It’s a democracy. Blame the electorate, my friend.”
In the last election, the British people voted ‘none of the above’, but they got a government anyway. All three of the major parties are Watermelons.
In reality there is no significant political choice being put to the electorate.
The trouble is that apart from revolution, there is no way to make substantial changes to democracy. Turkeys do not vote for Christmas, and the politicians in power will not vote for real change that will hand back power to the people. The ideal of government by the people for the people is an ideal, regrettably it is far divorced from reality.
What is needed is real accountability. Those in power should be held accountable for their decvisions, and should face jail/or financial penalties if they screw up. All blind trusts, spousal and familiar property should be deemed the property of the politician and should be possible to levy redress against all such property.
It should be made a criminal offence fior a politican to lie (strict liability with perhaps 3 days in the worst jail in the country). A short sharp shock.
What I cannot understand is why anyone on the public pay roll is paid more than the Prime Minister; he is top dog, and he should be paid the most. No one employed in local government, employed by the BBC, teachers, judges, welfare, nhs, whitehall civil servants etc should be paid more than cabinet ministers. There needs to be a complete overhaul of the pay structure of public servants. It is not as if they do a good job.
The whole civil service is over manned. A couple of years ago, Andrew Neil did an interview on defence cuts. The MOD were cutting approximatey 23,000 soldiers. Andrew Neil pointed oyt that the Israeli MOD had less than 450 staff dealing with military procurement, by contrast the MOD had approximately 24,000. Both were spending about the same amount of money on military procurement, so how come could the Israeli’s spend the budget with just450 staff and the UK with 24,000. If the MOD had to cut 23,000 from the payroll, rather than cutting back on the front line, the obvious choice was to cut back 23,000 whitehall civil servants/MOD troughers in the procurement department.
The civil service has become bloated, at the height of the British Empire, England was ably to effectively run an empire in all corners of the globe with a civil service less than 10% the size of the present day civil service. Government has got far too big, and wasteful and needs to be drastically pruned back, but how?
Just look at the House of Lords and how it has grown these past 20 years. If we had say 200 MPs and 200 ‘Lords’ (but elected second chamber) that would be ample to carry out government work and policy. Why is there so many? We are being todl that this year they are only working 2 or 3 days a week, and they have about 20 weeks annual holiday as well. There is little for the MPs to do since so much legislation is set in Europe and has to be largely rubber stamped.
It is easy to see that there are major problems, but very difficult to do anything about it. Especially since the sitting parties know far too well that protest votes are only made at by elections, not at the general election. The electorate needs to call their bluff and on one occassion cast a protest vote at the general election. This may result in a terrible outcome, and lead to a very strange government, but it would make the ruling political eleite realise that the public really does possess some control and if they continue to take the electorate for fools they may get kicked out of office.
I not in favour of UKIP (although I do consider that they have a few good policies) I wiould like to see them do extremely well at the forthcoming election just to put the wind up the sails of the Con/Lib/Lab coalition.
Dorian, we just need to accept that our species is not evolved to live in an affluent technological society and stop breeding. Human beings have already failed as a species, but it wasn’t our fault it was the inevitable consequence of our genetic inheritance.
It’s a safe bet that nobody pushing this nonsense will ever worry about getting cold, much less dying from it.
Peter, this interview with Jill Dugan conducted way back in 2011 gives you a pretty fair insight into exactly what the world of sane people is dealing with.
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/dont_know_the_cost_dont_know_if_it_works/
And for those who are unfamiliar with who this lady is, Jill Duggan is from the European Commission’s Directorate General of Climate Action.
Thanks.
What is more one of the major political figures in that was a German. Without him the old English aristocracy would have nothing to do with trade and considered they were enlightened if they even visited the house of a major industrialist but would never stoop to staying with anyone in trade. Even when broke and married money they treated their wives who bailed them out appallingly.
So sign the gov-petition to repeal the CCA. Has a month or so to run.
“Already, 60% of Scotland’s landscape has windmills scarring it.” What density threshold is that figure based on? –AGF
GIS software has a process called “viewshed” analysis. Use of such could answer the question. Until documented, I would not quote the 60% figure.
Example:
http://mapaspects.org/webdir/colca/research/viewshed/what_is.html
Look what their answer will be.
http://eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=84147
“The Government is set to make a windfall profit of hundreds of millions of pounds out of a lucrative scheme to sell power from thousands of the emergency diesel generators it owns to the National Grid. The cash will come from using them to guard against the times when the wind is too low to drive the expanding fleet of wind turbines, so staving off widespread blackouts
Public buildings, including NHS hospitals, prisons, Army barracks and RAF bases, police and fire headquarters, schools and council offices equipped with emergency generators are to be asked to make them available on 20-minute standby to back-up the grid when supply is short. For this, they will be paid premium rates, soon to rise to the equivalent of £600 per Megawatt hour (MWh) of electricity produced.
This is more than 12 times the rate currently paid to ordinary power station operators, and six times the rate paid to inshore wind farm owners”
Oh the joined up thinking of LIB?LAB?CON
Roll on UKIP , save us from this madness.
All we can hope is that Ukip win so many seats that they actually have some influence to wield. Otherwise we’re buggered for another five years.
Not just five years. Remember that only THREE MPs voted against this nonsense. Since no MP will ever admit to being wrong at least 50% of the current MPs will have to die before Parliament votes for a change.
I like to think it’s not quite as bad as that, Roger. There were 227 (35%) new members elected in 2010, and a fair number extra will be removed from 2015, for various reasons.
Of course most of the remaining ones just voted how they were told, and never gave the issue any thought. It’s time they did, and I think most of them are capable of doing so. A fear of UKIP in all three major parties might help concentrate minds that refuse to see sense when it comes knocking.
The scary thing is that when the Empire _ucks this thing up, WE will take it up because WE can make it work. Just like every other failed philosophy and ideology, WE can do it right.
yet they won’t give the go ahead for a barrage across the Severn
Because that would be an environmental disaster for the birdlife that lives there (reference: The Wildfowl and Wetland Trust).
And it wouldn’t be cheap to build up front.
And, if you care about CO2 emissions, giant concrete structures aren’t as climate friendly as you might guess.
Tidal energy is non-renewable. It takes energy from the earth-moon system, lengthens the day, pushed the moon higher, reduces the size of the tides. Humanity already uses twice as much energy as is naturally dissipated by the tides.
Most emergency generators operate off grid. That is, not synched to the grid frequency, as there is no need since only on when the grid is off. This is the so called islanded microgrid problem. It would take many billions and several years to install synchronization equipment to let such gensets supply synchronously to the grid ‘off island’.
This is so difficult a mechanical/electrical problem that Shimizu Corporation of Japan proposes a solution using industrial NiMH batteries plus supercap statcomms (power electronics) to do the off island frequency synching electronically using energy storage instead. Of course, that equipment is larger than and costs as much as the genset, and isn’t feasible for more than about 250kw (0.25 MW).
The DECC proposal is a feel good piece of technical nonsense. Bring a much out of phase stand alone islanded diesel genset, even a large one, onto the grid and you have an event of considerable violence removing that genset permanently from production while laying waste to the vicinity. Thrusting a large electromagnetic stick into the metaphorical spokes of a very heavy, rapidly spinning bicycle wheel equivalent does that quite reliably.
MCourtney
apparently constructing further out in the Channel avoids disruption to wild fowl and flooding of the levels.
zemlik
A Severn barrage would provide intermittent power. It would increase the problems under discussion.
Obtaining energy from the large tides in the Severn estuary while avoiding immense environmental damage requires use of tidal lagoons.
I addressed this subject years ago; please read this.
Richard
Richard, I read your paper about the various alternative methods of power production; quite enlightening. But back to Lord Monckton’s discourse. The problem, as I see it, is that the politicians who make all these decisions about energy and other things, are, in fact, scientifically illiterate and have little idea of what they are talking about. In the main they are lawyers, people who studied humanities and economics, etc., and waffle on about carbon pollution, saving the planet and so on. Science is based on fact, measurement and data, not on some computer generated hogwash, and the facts are there hasn’t been much warming of late if anyone has noticed.
IF they manage to pull it off it will be the beginning of the end for the UK. IF they manage to pull it off the UK will look like Greece during the height of their financial madness, except way more excess winter deaths. Good luck UK.
I lived in London for many years and had wonderful gas central heating. Before that I used small fan heaters and as a result my energy bills hurt like mad and there were cold spots all over the place! I could have gone for an electric storage heater but decided against it.
Jimbo, actually electric heating is far way advanced than gas heating. Gas heating is confined to metal slabs on your wall filled with water, that is heated, then pumped around pipework. It’s archaic. The future is electric underfloor heating. It means simplicity, reliability, and individual room time & temperature control. There is an alternative (which is also electric). That is air handling systems. The air is extracted from each room, heated, filtered, dried, and even ionised, then fanned back in. It’s more expensive than electric UFH, and it’s more complicated. Gas heating has become amazingly unreliable, and maintenance is expensive. The ONLY advantage it has is cost. But actually, if you take into account the cost of running a gas system, the two become almost level – this is because electric heating costs nothing in maintenance, and is very reliable. I could go on about it for hours, as it’s my job!
TGOBJC, that may be OK for new builds, but not so good for older established houses, which already happen to have those slabs on the wall.
How much will it cost to retrofit every home in the UK with UFH?
A C Osborn. No, not so, I live in one of those older houses, and I’ve already done it. The beauty of it is that as it is individual room heating (not a system), it’s simply done as each room is refurbished over time.
Retired Engineer, you currently pay in the region of £250 boiler depreciation every year (as modern boilers have to be replaced every 10 years at an average cost of £2,500). Over 10 years you may also pay almost £2,000 in insurance and/or maintenance. That’s £4,500 every 10 years in total. This would buy a typical home a full Electric UFH ‘system’. So in effect, it wouldn’t cost any ‘extra’ at all. So the cost to retrofit every home with electric UFH is what typical gas heating systems ALREADY cost in terms of running expenditure. This is all well known in our trade, but no one talks about it to clients as all profit is in fitting and maintaining gas-based systems. In short, the British public is kept in the dark about it. It’s a similar story with solar panel systems. I have yet to come across anyone actually making a profit on one – I must stress – when ALL account has been taken of expenditure and future expenditure. Again, it is talked about in our trade press at great length, but again, there is a strong vested interest!
@ TGOBJC, Rubbish!
Gas is used at ~80% gross efficiency in old boilers, and, >90% gross efficiency in new boilers. Transmission losses are negligible.
Electric power generation & distribution ~ 50% efficient.
Gas can be stored, electricity (on grid scale) cannot.
Consequently, (in the UK) electricity is 3x Natural Gas price.
“Gas heating has become amazingly unreliable …” Absolute & utter nonsense. What references have you for that slur on the industry?
Power outages are not uncommon. I suspect 95% of UK population have had (maybe just a brief) interruption in the past 3 years. I doubt if 5% gas users have ever had a gas interruption that affected them & their immediate neighbours.
Remember, in April this year: “A fault at a substation was the cause of a power outage which affected more than 200,000 properties across the north of Scotland last week.” There has never, ever been a gas-outage in the UK on even 5% of that scale.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-27116417
High winds & ice accumulation frequently bring down overhead power lines.
Of course, when your gas furnace malfunctions, you can easily fix or replace it since it is sitting in a closet or the basement. When your electric heat fails (and it does for various reasons), you get to rip of the floor or the plaster ceiling!
Then there is that little detail of EMI just inches from you, for those who are concerned about such things.
Joe Public, try and not to be so rude and puerile, you may learn something. If you read my posts again, you may see that I am deeply within the heating industry, it’s what I do. Your post shows a complete lack of understanding as well. When you have a power outage, you have no gas central heating either. So gas heating users don’t need a gas outage, just an electric one. That seems to have passed you. If you want to discuss it sensibly, then first understand that, unlike you, I am in the industry and very well informed. If you want a question answered then be polite.
The effect of electric fields around your feet due to UFH has been mush researched, and is less harmful than using a mobile phone – which itself has been shown to be harmless. The reliability of electric UFH is also known to be rather exceptional. Modern mats come with a 15 year guarantee minimum. It is also quite easy to replace as it overlaid with carpet or laminated flooring (and almost every laminated flooring is clicked together now).
To say that underfloor electric heating needs no mailtainance is stretching things a bit, but I agree in principle.
However, installing electric heating mats under groundfloor floor coverings in most old housing stock requires attention to insulation of th floor slab.
I agree that gas boilers are diabolically unreliable these days, mostly as a result of all the measures designed in to squeeze the last few % of efficiency out of them. No-one considers the cost of maintainance and replacement in the ‘efficiency’ equation.
Bring back well built SIMPLE boilers……….. I could also go on for hours about it, as it’s my job too!!
@ TGOBJC at 12:39pm
Gas-fired boiler & warm-air systems depend electricity for control. But during a power cut, my gas fire & gas cooker still work.
If you’re “deeply within the heating industry” then you should have no difficulty providing references for your claim “Gas heating has become amazingly unreliable …”
Electric UFH has, by definition, to be “On Peak”, so it’s 3x the day-time cost of gas (which incidentally, is the same as night time cost of gas). You’re paying ~15p/kW at present. When smart-meters become mandatory they’ll likely impose (even-higher) maximum-demand charges.
If you actually are in the heating industry, then you’ll know that gas-fired air handling systems have been available for decades. But having a gas burner rather than electric resistance heating, means the former cost only 1/3 to run.
Jon, the old Potterton Diplomat and Vulcan Viceroy back boilers went for years before sooting up. They were inefficient, but remarkably reliable. Electric valves added a level of unreliability in the early 1970s, but they were still amazingly reliable. I removed a Vulcan Viceroy from a house about six years ago. It had been there since 1965 and all that went were two pumps and two thermocouples.
As for electric UFH, I’ll say again though, it really is zero maintenance. If the controls are sensibly sourced, they too will be almost unreplaceable in 15 years, or even longer. As for insulation, that is no problem at all. All you have to do is lay Depron (doubled). It’s the equivalent of 300mm of concrete or 100mm of wood – and it’s cheap!
I will probably be leaving the industry this coming year, and it saddens me to see the unreliability that has been built in due to controls and needless complexity. When I joined, we still had wind-up timers! Oh, and the odd explosion or two!
This may well work in temperant climates. On the west coast of the USA, gas is king. As an electrical contractor I use gas. The air handlers blow heat and cold throughout in duct work, last 20 years plus, and are low maintence. Electric floor heat is confined to kitchens and baths as auxiliary use for upscale houses. In the northern areas when a power outage occurs in winter, a small generator and a few gallons of gas will keep you warm, all you need to do is plug in the furnace. Your electric heat neighbor freezes and gets a nasty surprise when the power comes back on and the frozen water pipes which have burst, thaw and flood the house. Slab pipes and cables under tile and real wood floors are terrible to repair, not to mention the larger electrical service required for heat and the cabling that needs to be run throughout the house. It’s a big, big world.
Gas heating has become amazingly unreliable, and maintenance is expensive. The ONLY advantage it has is cost.
=============
The only thing less reliable than gas is everything else.
Our neighborhood lost power for 2 weeks in Vancouver in the dead of winter following a storm. A few hundred thousands of homes were affected and repairs took time. The only reliable heat we had was two gas fireplaces and a gas water heater. The furnace didn’t work because it needed electricity for the fan.
The house was warm and toasty and we had hot showers, living by candle light for two weeks. A lot of other people didn’t have hot showers, heat or hot food for two weeks and those that could moved into hotels. Luckily we also had a motorhome parked on our property, and were able to make our meals on the gas range. However, the fresh water had already been drained from the motorhome to prevent freeze damage, so preparation had to first be done in the house.
Anybody have any experience with UPS protected gas ch? IMO it is all a gravity fed system needs and a pump fed system could be done with a dc pump or an invertor.
Joe Public, you’re at it again. Try writing sensibly. First of all, old boilers were never 80% efficient. We once measured a boiler at 43% efficiency – much of the heat went up the fluepipe. The client couldn’t understand why her gas bill was so high, but her home so cool. Secondly, very few modern boilers are 90% efficient. All you are doing is showing that you have no idea of what you are talking about, sorry. These figures are given by boiler manufacturers in labs, they are never reproducible on site (much like mpg figures). The principle reason is that boilers don’t condensate unless the return temperatures (water coming back to be reheated) is 57c or less. Hence, in the real world, this only happens some of the time – as radiator valves open/close and valves switch.
To answer your other points: the use of warm air systems was virtually 100% gas in the past, but I wasn’t talking about the past! The modern warm air system (in some very nice posh homes in a particular area of London) use a unit located in the loft. Gas isn’t used, Joe Public! I had a chat with the chairman of one of the old companies that used to be the main player (J&S), and they talk about reconfiguring their systems, but residual heat within the heat exchanger is something that must be expelled. This can mean a room over-heating by some margin. An electric version of this uses a matrix (element), and cools rapidly, so it is ideal.
Costs: Electric isn’t 15p/kWh. Again, all you are doing is Googling! ExtraEnergy (a relatively new energy supplier) has been – and still is – supplying on-peak electric for 9p/kWh. When calculating costs, you have to take into account ALL expenditure, not just the fuel costs.
If you don’t want to believe that I am in the heating industry (though about to leave it this year, probably) then that’s fine. You can add it to all your other incorrect beliefs. Good evening.
Fred, add a small transfer switch for less than 500 dollars attach it to your lighting, furnace, microwave and frig and you are all set. A 3KW generator will run it all and charge your phones. You may even get TV as the cable company is separately powered.
TGOBJC:
I’m willing to be educated, but I have a rather skeptical view of UFH systems:
1) what if any limitations do they place on flooring material? I would assume carpeting would act as an insulator, which would have to be taken into consideration in sizing an installation. And what about the effect on the typical finishing materials used on wood floors? In the US, UFH systems are often promoted for bathrooms with tile floors to avoid that shock to bare feet in the morning experience. I’ve always thought it simpler to either wear stockings or keep a bathmat hung over the shower doors to lay down when you need to.
2) I assume these have to be electrical resistive strips of some kind? Anyone who has owned an electric kitchen range or oven for long enough has had to replace an element. They eventually develop a “hot spot” and burn out, sometimes with some exciting pyrotechnic effects. While I’m perfectly happy to accept a 10 year lifetime on easily replaced stove and oven elements, I would not be willing to dig up my floor every 10 years or so to repair the heating system. What’s the long-term service reliability for these systems?
Most new residential construction in the US includes air-conditioning, which uses forced-air circulation. Given that, it makes almost no sense to install UFH for heating, except in certain special locations like bathroom floors. For energy efficiency reasons heatpumps are preferred over resistive strip electrical heating for all-electric houses. I have seen builders pushing UFH systems for those climates that never or seldom need air-conditioning, but all those I’ve seen use a circulating liquid system instead of resistive strips.
Thanks.
Fred, if you want to take things to their natural endline, then the only thing reliable is rubbing two sticks together within some straw!
Alan, carpet is ok, though timber is better. If using a carpet as floor cover then ensure that it is less than 2.5 tog. Most carpets are only 1.0 tog. As I said, modern electric UFH mats come with a 15 year warranty. I think that alone says that they aren’t how they used to be! We had some terrible electric UFH here in Britain in the 1960s. Air conditioning looked like it was going to take off here a few years ago, but in typical homes, it hasn’t.
@ TGOBJC at 2:11pm
1. You claimed “Gas heating has become amazingly unreliable …”. This is the 3rd request for a reference; other readers will make their own interpretation of your inability to substantiate your own wild claims.
2. ” We once measured a boiler at 43% efficiency – much of the heat went up the fluepipe.” So, out of the millions of boilers in the UK, you measured 1 and it was only 43% efficient. Big deal. Being in the heating industry, you’d obviosly realise there could be a multitude of reasons for that.
Ghost, you miss by a mile on your gas heating nonsense.
This sounds like an interested party’s story. I’ve lived in gas-heated, forced air homes all my life except for 2 years. They are extremely reliable, efficient, and inexpensive. There’s no need to dry the air after it’s heated!! Nor is ionization necessary. For those 2 years, I lived in a condo with electric heat. The real estate salesman sounded like the ghost of the ghost of Big Jim. We believed him until we saw the heating bills. They were enormous! Any savings in initial expense were eaten up in those first two years.
All the answers about electric heating seem to anticipate resistance heating. Efficient electric heating involves moving heat, not ‘creating it’. Heat pumps are replacing water heaters and furnaces all over the world.
Forced air gas heating is cheap and lends itself just as well to cooling. Heat accumulators can be connected but the heat should be transferred from outside the envelope by pump.
Heat pumps are now available which will work when it is -25 C outside. Resistance heating coils are passé.
Crispin – VERY good point about Heat Pumps, Here in Indiana we’ve seen an explosion of new HP enhanced furnaces and climate control systems for the residential market over the last 15 years. And most of those are gas systems.
Gas makes up about 90% of local residential heating systems and nearly 100% of commercial and industrial. Of those, only about 5% are boiler. The rest are forced air or HP.
TGOBJC – While I believe you that your experienced in the heating and cooling industry, I have to wonder if your location is skewing your perception. Around here it’s nothing like how you’ve described it. Gas is king, Electric is both expensive and inefficient, and Under Floor Heat is a novelty for wealthier homeowners who don’t like to walk on cold floors. The few homes that were built with ONLY UFH have had to have additional heating retrofitted in, usually at great expense.
As for power outages, lately we’ve been getting a couple a year that last at least a day, and many averaging 3 days. Because of this home owners have begun to install Nat Gas powered backup generators (Nat Gas because it doesn’t need refueling like diesel), and as many as 1/4 of all new houses built have them from the beginning. Were even starting to see systems that combine climate control and emergency power in one basic unit.
Personally my own house has an older furnace I’ve babied along for a decade and a half, and was old when i got the place. It’s not the most efficient unit around, but it has a Pilot Light/Thermocouple system, and a power failure won’t do more then stop it’s blowers. Thank god heat rises, it’s got us through a few cold, dark, powerless winter nights.
The craziest system I’ve seen though had an emergency power generator hooked to the water supply. Provided mechanical power and a small amount of electricity in a total power/generator failure. Was just enough to keep the Furnace OR Sump Pump going. Would be a hell of a water bill if it ran for a day or three, but better then the alternative.
The Ghost Of Big Jim Cooley,
I can only speak about my own experience and I was very happy with my gas central heating system in my small London flat. I don’t recognize the “Over 10 years you may also pay almost £2,000 in insurance and/or maintenance”. My system was fitted quickly and that was it – apart from regular check-ups for safety.
Why do you not include gas forced-air systems? I’ve lived long enough to have evolved from wood stoves to coal-fired behemoth, octopus furnaces to oil-fired furnaces to gas, with stints in apartments with boiler-based steam and hot water systems and all-electric service. The home I’ve been in for the last 40+ years has a forced-air gas-fired system that is the most reliable system I’ve experienced. I’ve NEVER been without gas service, but some of the electrical outages I’ve experienced through the years have been horrid and long. A small generator allows my gas heating system to continue through electrical outages, but could not possibly operate a resistance-heating system. Having been retired for many years on a limited pension, I wouldn’t trade the efficiency, reliability and cost of gas for electric. I simply couldn’t afford it.
The “next big thing” in heating is probably IR radiative heating. The US military is looking into it because it can make you feel warmer than the objects around you actually are.
The Ghost Of Big Jim Cooley,
Thanks for the information. I last lived in the UK 14 years ago. The building itself was OLD, the system I purchased was NEW and I had no high maintenance issues. The system was fitted in very quickly. So for me I’m not sure what the latest systems would have cost as the building was not new.
I bet there is one thing that Underfloor heating can’t do, which my wife Must Have and that is Radiators to dry Washing in the Winter at the same time as warming the house, just don’t mention Electirc Tumble Dryers.
Looks like our decision to emigrate from the UK was sensible. In tropical Australia, one thing we don’t face is large heating bills.
But what about your cooling bills? 😉
That’s what the beach is for. 😉
+1 🙂
Depending on where you live, it is often cheaper to cool than to heat. Consider heat addition or removal. Where I am, it is not unusual to have to raise the temperature in my home by 50 or 60 degrees (F) or more in the winter, but usual to have to reduce temperatures by 10 to 20 degrees with summer air conditioning.
As a southerner in Aust., I migrated to Cairns to get away from bronchitis every Winter. Fans are good and don’t use much electricity, but with a 3KW solar panel system my production exceeds the grid input by a factor of two. At the moment it is producing about 450 Kwh a month.
Multiplication of efficiency factors aside, the real questions for electric vehicles are what is the source of the electric energy (coal, gas, nuclear, renewable?) and if fossil fuel, what is the efficiency of air pollution capture for that source? This article also completely ignores recent and projected advances in technology, such as battery technology (http://www.rdmag.com/news/2014/11/advancements-battery-technology-shaping-future-electronic-vehicles), thereby heavily skewing the costs of mitigation.
the article you mention goes on to say:
“Although lots of research has been done to develop rechargeable, high energy metal-air battery cells during the past decade, there is still a long road ahead to achieve a practical high-energy battery system that can meet the demand for our current EVs,” said Sun.
Did you notice this little Gem, “They are also going to install 1.2 GW of new nuclear capacity each year”.
What is the build time for Hinckley Poiint C? About 10 years at current thinking and they are going to need to build half of one of those every year for 20 to 30 years.
Complete fantasy. Richard Booker also has a good article on this in the Telegraph.
http://www.thegwpf.com/christopher-booker-the-insanity-of-zero-carbon-britain/
I bet Chris has bemoaned the lack of punctuation in the sub-title to this piece! 😉
You say the govt is going to ban the use of gas in industry and homes in the next 20 years.
Can you quote the govt policy or directive that states this?
David Mackey said several years ago that burning gas should be made a thermogenic crime so his years as chief govt adviser may well have rubbed of on DECC but it would be nice to see the actual govt statement to this effect.
Around three years ago I asked a dozen leading climate scientists what effect the limiting of co2 to a theoretical 350ppm would have on global temperature. Most admitted they had never done the calculation the several that replied confirmed it was in the hundredths of a degree .
Tonyb
+1 for an exact reference please.
In a brief Google search, I was unable to find any announcement of a natural gas ban by Edward Davey. Perhaps Lord Monckton could point us to the document(s) that prompted this article?
Gary
Here are the minutes from the nov meeting of the house of commons energy committee. I can not see any direct reference to phasing out gas.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201415/cmhansrd/cm141106/debtext/141106-0001.htm
Mind you the policies of the govt to reduce co2 emissions to the lebels stated must logically lead in that direction but as yet I can not see the gov admitting it. Presumably too close to the general election to want to admit it
Tonyb
2050 Pathways Analysis
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/68816/216-2050-pathways-analysis-report.pdf
[First published in 2010, seemingly to demonstrate how utterly mad our politicians are.]
TonyB, it’s the 2030/2050 ‘plan’. I can’t look for the documents at the moment, but it is all online. The principle plan is district heating together with heat pumps etc. Gas boilers for domestic use will be severely restricted by 2028/30 and eliminated altogether by 2050.
This is one document, but there are shorter ones that spell it out more simply.
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/190149/16_04-DECC-The_Future_of_Heating_Accessible-10.pdf
Big jim
Lord monckton says phasing out will be completed by 2034 . Your post says they will be eliminated by 2050 . I will read your references, for which many thanks.
Tonyb
No, it won’t be completed by 2034, there is still too much opposition to that timeframe. The plan remains 2050 – I don’t care what Mr Monckton says. As I said, there are better PDFs available online which detail the arguments surrounding the issue, and the likely date.
It’s what happens when no-one has done their homework, but trusts everyone else has. They all sing the same song, in tune together, comforted by the absence of dissonance, their absence of diligence excused, and handsomely rewarded. What else could it be but “the right thing to do”?
It takes Lord M to point it out, and they are dumbfounded. Not only has The Emperor no clothes, none of his courtiers have either. We have a nude Parliament, save three brave truth-tellers.
,
I think it’s from the Department of Energy and Climate Change’s “2050 Pathways Analysis”
http://www.thegwpf.com/christopher-booker-the-insanity-of-zero-carbon-britain/
Big jim posted this reference
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/190149/16_04-DECC-The_Future_of_Heating_Accessible-10.pdf
It is section three that is relevant to gas burning in homes.
Firstly this document is a vision not a legal framework. Secondly the date for completion is 2050 not 2034.
It is clearly aspirational and bound around with all sorts of caveats. Clearly they are already behind schedule and need a variety of things to make it happen, including public support, which is notably lacking.
It all seems extremely unlikely to me as regards Gas supplies to existing homes which can’t be connected to the heat networks planned, bt new homes might conceivably be plugged into the district schemes planned in the next decade or two.
At one time we burned charcoal and peat. If better ways of producing cheap reliable heat can be found its not unreasonable to embrace it. we shall see. It won’t happen by 2034 though.
Tonyb
Piped gas can be made from peat and waste biomass, if they really want to go renewable.
Our resident chief climate fraudster in Australia, Tim Flannery says any mitagation of temperature won’t be noticable for possibly 1000 years!
Flannery: “I just need to clarfy in terms of the climate context for you. If we cut emissions today, global temperatures are not likely to drop for about a thousand years.”
http://australianclimatemadness.com/2011/03/26/thousand-years-for-co2-cuts-to-take-effect/
Mad as a fish:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_University_of_Oxford_people_with_PPE_degrees
The politics? Yes.
The philosophy? Yes.
The economics … er … not so much.
Interesting that ” … The vast majority of students at Oxford drop one of the three subjects for the second and third years of their course.”
Makes you wonder if it is the E in PPE that gets itself dropped.
The ‘E’ – according to my Irish mates – stands for ‘Eejits!’
mind you, when university science and engineering in Blighty researching bubble-bath for ships to make the sea more reflective (and assuming ship owners will happily take an around about course to spread their frothy wake for the good of the cause), you’ve got to assume that the country has collectively gotten a few ‘roos loose in the top paddock.
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-30543252
Thank you, Lord Monckton for an excellent analysis. If the additional mining necessitated to make all the batteries for the electric cars, our increased dependency on the electric grid, and other factors are included, the situation is even worse.
We need more atmospheric CO2, not less. We are going to a new stable configuration – the ice age and more CO2 will delay its onset.
What then is this “Carbon Pollution”?
A sinister, evil collusion?
CO2, it is clean,
Makes for growth, makes it green,
A transfer of wealth, a solution.
http://lenbilen.com/2014/02/22/co2-the-life-giving-gas-not-carbon-pollution-a-limerick-and-explanation/
also: http://lenbilen.com/2014/07/01/eleven-signs-of-cooling-a-new-little-ice-age-coming/
As an addition. Lord Monckton gave an excellent explanation for the economics of the madhouse;
Here is the religion of the madhouse: http://lenbilen.com/2014/12/22/on-the-sin-of-the-world-and-the-lie-what-does-that-mean/
Ed Davey in charge of energy policy? I was thinking what is that analogous to? A bus driver at the controls of a jet fighter? A podiatrist attempting heart surgery? Another career driven PPE grad trying to understand science?
Ah well not long to the election.
Aye, not long … but with only Ukip talking any sense on this subject it’s still far from a foregone conclusion that much will change. “No matter who you vote for, the government always gets in.”
Do you think the UKIP will turn into Cheek #3, Steve? A strange concept, but not impossible.
Haha, know what you mean, Jorge. Why not? It’s a science-fiction world they’re building …
I filled my car with gasoline @ $2.16 per gallon
They’ve jumped the shark. Finally they’ve really gone too far.
New business opportunity, mobile rapid EV charging service for stranded motorists after their batteries die. Oh wait, who will be able to afford it?
While it is somewhat encouraging that in this insanity the US seems to be “leading from behind,” the likely result is appalling.
As insane as is the current US effort to maximize the probable cost in treasure, life and liberty by willfully doing the opposite of what we should be doing, the “real conspiracy” that is becoming more “real” by the day, is that there is a motive behind the madness.
The underlying dogma of the inner circle of the greenies is that there are too many people. The paranoid view might be that the expensive campaign in the wrong direction is intentional.
Oh dear Lord Monckton you have been woefully ill informed about nuclear reactors.
The exact capacity of the reactors fitted to nuclear submarines is of course an official secret but its is clear from public sources that their output is at best 10% of that quoted for the Hitachi reactors. Moreover the cost per megawatt hour of the military reactors is FAR higher than that for a civilian design. This is unsurprising given that they have a quite different set of requirements. Land based reactors don’t have to operate at various angles of bank in a turn nor at steep bow angles. Note that British designed military reactors have an operating life of less than 1/3 that of civilian reactors as they are not designed to be refuelled. Essentially the boats are scrapped when the core would need replacing. Again this is not surprising as you essentially need to dismantle a good portion of the vessel to gain access to the reactor core.
These are of course the reasons RR are not planning to enter the civil market.
The Hitachi reactors – which as far as I know have NOT yet been ordered, are actually built by the GE – Hitachi group and they are one of the most experienced reactor designers in the world. Note that the UK PWR2 reactors are based on a 40 year old Westinghouse design.
The only station ordered thus far is Hinckley Point C which of course uses 2 French designed 1.6 gigawatt units. EdF who are the owners and builders are the largest nuclear power utility outside China and have an excellent record. Compare and contrast French and British electricity prices. The French pay less for residential electricity than anyone in Europe outside the Nordic countries which have massive hydro electric power installations.
I am very sad and disappointed to see an otherwise excellent post spoiled by such inaccuracies.
I’d like to add he has also confused the capacities of naval and civilian power reactors by claiming:
Nuclear submarines do not have 600 MW reactors, at least if one is talking about electrical power generated. Even if he confused MWt (thermal) with MWe (electrical), I still can’t make the numbers match as you generally assume about thirty percent efficiency in converting heat to power, so 600 MWt should produce about 180 MWe — still way above what a US or British nuclear sub would use.
The Astute Class boats convert their steam to electricity using Alstom steam turbines that run on wet steam. As such they are MUCH less efficient than the superheated steam installations common with oil fired units. I’d be surprised if they hit 20%, The reactor is also designed with sufficient surplus capacity to be able to drive the system at the end of the core life which at best would suggest a conventional rating of approx. 150 MW thermal.
The EPR design selected for Hinkley Point C is rated at thermal power 4500 MWt and 1600 MW electrical.
This is a VERY advanced third generation design and was designed by a conglomerate of Electricite de France, AREVA (previously Framatome) and Siemens AG.
I sincerely wish Britain still had a viable nuclear industry but thanks to 40 years of government negligence we do not. I am one of the last generation of engineers who worked on British nuclear designs and at 62 I am approaching retirement,
carriers are 550 on nimitz class a4w reactor iirc
Lord Monckton is not far off the mark with his power estimates for the PWR2 reactor used by the Royal Navy. As you remark the Rolls Royce reactor is based on the Westinghouse Design, however the PWR2 has (like the Westinghouse A4W reactor) had ongoing core development. So even though outwardly the reactors may seem old, the fuel cycle and chemistry/physics is quite different today.
Although Rolls Royce do not publically advertise the exact specification of their military reactors, they are as you say very similar to Westinghouse designs. The A4W reactor, as used by the US Navy for instance, is quoted as having a power output of 550 megawatts. The newer Rolls Royce PWR3 is said to exceed that by as much as 1/3rd.
Incidentally EDF DO NOT produce any reactors at all, but instead have a sole supplier, Areva (also French). EDF however do “own” the entire British Civilian Nuclear Reactor Fleet, and perversely EDF do contract Rolls Royce to manage the refuelling of EDF’s French land based civilian nuclear plant. Areva are incidentally on the verge of bankruptcy, and only their ownership by the French Government itself prevents it’s liquidation,
The PWR 2 has certainly had a number of Core redesigns, the latest Core H is optimized for long life not increased power production. The reality of its power capability may be judged by the turbines it drives. Open sources indicate these are two Alstom units delivering 15,000 SHP (approx. 12 MW)
The turbines in the last generation of AGR’s were rated at 660 MW, those intended for Hinkley Point C are rated at 1600 MW. They mass more than the entire Astute boat,
PWR 2 – lets be generous – 30 MW
EPR – 1600 MW
The facts are clear
Now as for the A4W reactor this is expressly designed for nuclear powered super carriers and allowed the generation of 140 MW of power at the turbine shaft. They are in fact an order of magnitude smaller than those provided for the EPR
Note in USN practise the following prefixes are used
A – Aircraft carrier
C – Cruiser
D – Destroyer
S – Submarine
The latest and greatest of the submarine reactors is the S9G used in the Virginia Class
Its quite true that EdF do not produce reactors at all, that function was hived off when AREVA was created in 2001. However the French government retains a controlling interest in both organizations and EdF ARE involved in the design and development if not the manufacture. Having visited their nuclear engineering group in Paris on several occasions I can personally attest to that.
As for the PWR 3 it is as you say a licensed design from Westinghouse but is NOT based on the A4W which can be no more fitted in a submarine hull than it could be in your car, It is reportedly based on the S6 series as used in the Los Angeles and Seawolf class. Its possible they might get the S9G if the US decides to release it. It is not being used to generate extra power, the simple reality is that the PWR 2 design dates back to the 1970,s to my personal knowledge and no longer meets current safety standards.
When I resigned from the British Army in 1999, I joked that the only people in the world I particularly wanted to shoot were running my own country. It’s not so much of a joke these days.
“There was a strangled, aghast silence.” Priceless. As usual, we see that there is no Math in Libtania, only feelings…
Imagine the scene:
Stranded in your electric vehicle, in snow, in isolation, at night. But, you have a full charge.
Do you use the radio, a light and the heater?
Stranded in your fossil fuel vehicle, in snow, in isolation, at night. But, you have a full tank.
Do you use the radio, a light and the heater?
Actually in both cases you should use your emergency kit so you don’t burn up the electric car leaving you without shelter, and you don’t Carbon Monoxide yourself to death running a stuck fossil fuel car that may have a plugged or leaky exhaust. That’s why those of us in the Great White North carry candles, food, boots, clothing, chemical heaters, blankets, and extra mittens and other clothing.
“and you don’t Carbon Monoxide yourself to death running a stuck fossil fuel car that may have a plugged or leaky exhaust”
I recently heard, on the radio, that would-be suicides are failing to kill themselves with car exhaust because today’s cars are so well-tuned that they don’t produce enough CO.
It’s also worth noting that modern gasoline cars are so efficient that you may have a hard time heating them when stuck in a snow bank. Our Civic certainly cools down when idling at a stop light at forty below zero with the heater on.
Well, with Lord M. here and Booker in the Telegraph, we can only hope the British public start waking up to this insanity before it’s too late. If not, then (as Tiny Tim almost said), God help us all.
Lord M. of B, from a feller madhouse dweller, thank you very much for your continuing good work. To you and to all who have the good sense to read (and write!) WUWT, best wishes for a merry Christmas and a happy New Year.
Do I understand that gas-fired generators will be replaced with electricity powered generators? That should prove to be very green indeed.
Lord Monckton, I agree that all of this is just plain looney. Just plain silly. Unworkable. Stupid. Even suicidal. But then socialism in any of its many forms is also suicidal and the west has been heading down that path for decades now.
The plain fact is that far too many humans benefit from the welfare schemes — both individual and corporate. There are incentives, tax breaks, grants, jobs, grand vacations to exotic places for meetings, accolades, book deals, and all the rest. In the end, there is no way that CO2 has anything much to do with the earth’s temperature and on net may even be a cooling factor rather than a warming factor. Regardless, reality says that more CO2 does not equal higher temperatures. But who cares about that? There is gold in them thar hills! Funds from million dollar grants to be made! They will pay you not to produce electricity if you do it green! Shazzam! Found money! The government will pay you thousands for each electric car you make that no one wants! Easy street!
When the great depression comes; they will blame CO2.
I do hope the Greens are included in the leadership debates next year.
They would bring up these policies and aims. And someone needs to talk about it.
Right now there is nervous silence and feeble-minded fumbling towards idiocy.
Someone needs to try to defend this.
Within the trade and industry of heating, we are talking about it. The thing is, it may all be swept aside anyway. There is a complete unknown about what the future of heating will be. There WILL be advances made in solar cell generation, things we can’t even imagine yet, here in 2014. And 2050 is a long way off. The plan for the elimination of domestic gas heating will happen, whether it has anything to do with CO2 or not, it’s just heating moving with the times (almost all tower blocks constructed now are using electric heating). But the ideas contained in the Plan of district heating systems and combined heat & power systems already seem to be missing the point. Most likely heating will be by electric – generated individually by some means that currently (sorry about that) we haven’t even yet envisaged.
“Most likely heating will be by electric – generated individually by some means that currently (sorry about that) we haven’t even yet envisaged.”
But we have envisaged it: Micro (gas-engine) CHP.
http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/domestic/content/micro-chp
And with the industry going full-circle – Gas-absorption heat pumps!
http://www.cibsejournal.com/cpd/2010-10/
You are doing it again! Stop Googling. CHP is too expensive in capital costs, and is necessarily complex. Within our trade press, it has virtually died out in the past two years. One company have recently set up a scheme whereby you rent the boiler, but the catch is that you must buy your energy from them. That’s called ‘by the short and curlies’.
@TGOBJC at 2:17
Why do you repeatedly accuse someone of ‘Googling’, when they shoot your arguments down in flames? Why not provide answers, instead of displaying your own ignorance by making ill-considered ad-hominens?
You have absolutely no idea about other commenters’ knowledge or qualifications, so simply destroy your own credibility.
@ TGOBJC at 1:25
Your propaganda for the electricity industry would cause a sceptic to wonder if you’re on commission?
The electricity industry (in the UK at least) is the only industry everyone else has to pay to not produce.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/548433/Wind-farm-company-paid-millions-nothing-wants-expand?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+daily-express-scotland+%28Daily+Express+%3A%3A+Scotland+Feed%29
This may be off topic. Or not. Just happened to check details of UK manufacturing again today. It is an extraordinary story, little told. The manufacturing index peaked in December 2000 (not a misprint) at 108. It stands as of October, 2014 at 100.5. This is ONS series K22A (IOP) for any who wish to check.
Is this a consequence of UK energy policy? Not entirely of course, but it cannot help.
Thank you, Christopher, for another enjoyable read.
Merry Christmas! to you and yours.
Thanks Lord Monckton. Who was it that advised to be ware of the enemy within?
To make the whole farce even more bizarrely ridiculous the probability is that the earth is entering a cooling trend that may last for the next 600 years or so.
Section 1 of my post at
http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com/2014/07/climate-forecasting-methods-and-cooling.html
concerns the inutility of the IPCC climate models for forecasting purposes. It concludes:
“In summary the temperature projections of the IPCC – Met office models and all the impact studies which derive from them have no solid foundation in empirical science being derived from inherently useless and specifically structurally flawed models. They provide no basis for the discussion of future climate trends and represent an enormous waste of time and money. As a foundation for Governmental climate and energy policy their forecasts are already seen to be grossly in error and are therefore worse than useless. A new forecasting paradigm needs to be adopted.”
Using a new forecasting paradigm ,the same post contains estimates of the timing and amplitude of the possible coming cooling based on the natural 60 and important 1000 year quasi-periodicities seen in the temperature data and using the 10Be and neutron data as the best proxy for solar “activity”.
Not that many years ago I read the obituary of the gentleman who masterminded the roll-out of natural gas in the UK – I’m afraid I don’t remember his name.
According to the obituary, he fought tooth and nail to prevent substantial gas-fired electricity generation. In his view, natural gas was too valuable as a relatively cheap, highly efficient fuel easily distributable to domestic and industrial users for it to be wasted bulk-generating electricity which could be produced more sensibly from coal, nuclear, etc.
That line held for a long time and was only really broken by the “dash for gas” in the early years of the Blair (mal)administration.
That was before DECC was invented specifically to bring together the CAGW believers in the Environment Department (DEFRA) and the Energy team keeping the oil, gas and coal coming and the lights on in The Dept of Trade And Industry, and to give the former the upper hand. It has now had three Secretaries of State – Miliband, Huhne and Davey – each as bad as the other.
This latest announcement doesn’t surprise me at all – UK energy policy is driven wholly by decarbonisation targets while the country, its economic prospects and its people go to hell in a handcart (not least because they can’t afford the DECC ministers’ hybrid cars!).
In fairness only one is a convicted liar.
Miliband and Davey may have followed the guidance of the civil service (stupidly) but they aren’t all as bad as Huhne.
We should not condemn all politicians as corrupt just because they are all seemingly technically incompetent.
The comment was not about their personal morals but about their competence as SoS for Energy. As for whose guidance they follow, the “green blob” gets priority regardless of what the civil servants say.
True, incompetence does not imply, ipso facto, corruption. But then it should perhaps be borne in mind that these two qualities neither imply nor exclude insanity.
This reminds me of something I thought about years ago and that is what a shame it is to burn oil to heat homes and buildings because that can be done other ways and the oil used to operate aircraft and a few other applications will be very difficult to do any other way.
Nigel S
I am noting your off-topic nonsense as a courtesy. But I will waste no more time on it.
Have a Happy Christmas.
Richard
Questing Vole
At present, all the major UK political parties share the same mad energy policies which are described in the above article by Lord Monckton. This success of the Greens is not inhibited by people arguing about the past instead of trying to correct the energy policies of the present, and I suspect Tories (i.e. right-wingers) promote falsehoods about the past as a method to defend the energy policies the present Tory-led government is implementing now.
You assert
Rubbish!
The first ‘dash for gas’ was initiated by and conducted by the Tory Thatcher government. It was part of that government’s successful campaign to destroy the UK coal industry.
The BBC supported and promoted Thatcher’s ‘dash for gas’ and broadcast a TV documentary claiming that coal-fired power stations were being shut because they were old steam technology and they were being replaced by gas-fired power stations because they used gas turbines. On behalf of the British Association of Colliery Management, I complained that the documentary’s claim was untrue because combined cycle gas turbine plants (CCGT) also used steam turbines. My complaint was rejected on the grounds that the documentary only showed coal trains entering the ‘old’ power stations and did not state in words that they were coal-fired: according to the BBC words provide information but images do not.
The UK Right likes to pretend that almost everything done by the Thatcher government was action of later left-wing governments. This historical revisionism is not surprising but it distracts from the reality of the present situation and this distraction is its probable purpose.
Richard
Who closed more coal mines? Thatcher or Wilson/Benn? Wilson/Benn of course.
Having said that it is also true that Scargill was attempting to overthrow the elected government and will of the UK people.
Thatcher was also the first high profile politician to embrace the idea of “global warming” and cited it repeatedly as one of the reasons for moving away from coal. The real reason being that it helped justify destroying the union that came with the coal industry.
Nigel S
You provide yet more right-wing revisionism.
I don’t intend to repeat it all again on WUWT. For the truth of how and why the Thatcher government deliberately destroyed the UK coal industry please read this WUWT post.
Richard
wickedwenchfan
Yes and no.
Thatcher had a much more personal reason for starting the global warming scare.
See this for an explanation.
Richard
You haven’t answered the question as to who closed more mines because you know the answer I gave given is correct. As for factory output…
British factories boosted their output by 7.5pc between the second quarter of 1979 and the
third quarter of 1990, when she left Downing Street, according to the Office for National
Statistics.
The dash-for-gas had little to do with the miners.
The 1973 & 1979 dashes-for-gas were results of the oil crises caused by OPEC.
In ’73 the price of crude oil quadrupled virtually overnight.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_oil_crisis
Nigel S
I see you cannot resist deflecting from the discussion of the present mad UK energy policies by promotion of right-wing revisionism.
You say to me
I answered it with the link that I provided.
Your assertion is numerically correct but factually misleading.
As mines were upgraded by mechanisation the least productive mines were closed. This was very different from the Ridley Plan imposed by the Thatcher government to close the industry. And I am certain that you knew that.
Richard
You linked to an earlier post of yours also claiming that Thatcher destroyed industry, yet another myth as I showed but you chose to ignore that too. Given that you were emplyed by an organization dependent on state subsidy it’s a good ideas to consider who is most adversely affected by the taxes that fund those subsidies and that now fund green subsidies. Of course the answer is the poorest 10%, the next worst affected are the richest 10% but they at least have the means to cope.
I have a big new digester installation nearby here in the UK, attached to an enourmous greenhouse complex trying to grow tomatoes.
Do they take any organic waste? No. Do they take their own waste? No. They take chopped maize and what looks like sugar beet, grown on prime agricultural land at various sites up to 15 miles away, all hauled in small trailers by tractors, multiple journeys.
I am currently trying to gain details of the subsidies provided to the operators, who appear to be based in the southern part of Italy (!!)
It doesn’t seem that I shall be successful, but I may get a horse’s head :-))
Sounds like a case for Inspector Montalbano.
The question of “how much global warming the Department’s insane policies would prevent in the coming decades, and at what cost per Kelvin abated”, is a bit of a beauty. Like an unplayable Yorker it will destroy all but the best-prepared defences.
Keep at it Lord M. Every year that passes exposes the CCA as singularly the most idiotic Act ever passed in UK history.
It probably is the most idiotic Act ever passed in UK history.
It combines the ideological judgementalism of the Act of Toleration with the economics of the Corn Laws.
No wonder it had near universal approval from our elected representatives.
battery charging is 90% efficient
================
that really only holds true for new batteries in optimal conditions. charge efficiency drops as the battery is cycled, until you get more like 50% efficiency after 300-1000 cycles.
A daily commute to work can be as much as 2 cycles, depending on distance, which means that charging efficiency may drop off quite rapidly.
In cold weather countries the situation can be much worse, as the waste heat from the gasoline engine is no longer available to heat the occupants. Also, in cold weather the battery itself must be heated to maintain efficiency (think what happens to a conventional battery trying to start a car in cold weather).
Wonderful article, Christopher.
@Rud Istvan December 22, 2014 at 12:08 pm “Most emergency generators operate off grid.”
Rud, the STOR system spoken of here is grid connected.
I am not sure why you think it is difficult to synchronise to the grid, but any size diesel powered generator can do it if it has a decent governor and AVR.
This, from the country of Darwin, Newton, Dalton, Huxley, Hooker, Henslow, Hawking, Watson, Crick, Rutherford…. From the country which made possible the modern world.
It really makes one despair of the modern political world – a world where thought and facts do not matter. Only public opinion does.
Perhaps when tourists stop coming to the U.K because the landscapes are ruined, someone might take notice.
Well, Watson is an American but was working at Cambridge (England) of course. It is true that we punch above our weight for Nobel prizes (UK, Cambridge, Trinity College, in that order).
I forgot to add: “For standby diesel generators or gas-fired CHP generators, STOR is the largest incremental revenue opportunity, with the lowest relative impact on generator run hours, and the lowest exposure to fuel price risk, of any premium energy activity.”
from: http://www.flexitricity.com/core-services where STOR is described.
Which proves to me that its all about money.
A US gallon of gasoline is 33 Kwh of power. About $3.30 US at domestic rates of $0.10 kwh. Which co-incidentally, is about the price of a US gallon of gasoline.
However, at the gas pump it takes only a few seconds to pump a gallon of gasoline into your car. However, 120 volt electrical line from your house can only supply about 15 Amp without overloading the circuit.
Which means it will take about 20 hours to charge a battery with the energy equivalent of a single gallon of gasoline from a wall socket. If you wanted to fill a car with a full tank of electricity, you are talking the better part of a week from a wall socket, versus a few minutes from a gasoline pump.
This is just the warm up for the ground work being laid to outlaw motor vehicles with bicycles, by edict of course.
you are unfortunately close to the truth. here in vancouver they plan that the majority of trips by 2030 will either be by transit, bicycle or foot. we were driving home the other night in a typical winter storm. cold, dark, near freezing, with rain and wind by the bucket. serious hazard on the highways. hydro-planning, with zero visibility due to torrents of water thrown up by other vehicles.
anyone out walking or bicycling in that weather would be the definition of miserable. And waiting at a bus stop for transit? In that weather? You would be at risk of drowning from the wall of water thrown up by each passing vehicle. The only good thing about it is that it is too miserable even for rapists and muggers.
there is a reason that the personal automobile is successful. it protects you from the environment while transporting you efficiently from doorstep to doorstep.
I wonder how well it works riding a bicycle on ice or snow covered roads?
Sadly I have to conclude that the state should own and operate (but of course not build) power stations. Private industry is about expansion and making profits and inflating egos and paying enormous salaries to management and paying dividends to share holders (many of which will be overseas pensioners). I don’t want to have to pay for all that via exorbitant electricity bills.
Legislation will be needed for this new state enterprise to keep it working properly, such as a break-even-not-for-profit level of bills, and a ban on unions.
dividends to shareholders is why the shareholders put up the money to buy shares. why else would they lend their hard earned money to the company? they could simply put it in the bank.
the money to build the power station had to come from somewhere. that somewhere isn’t going to lend the money unless there is money to be made. otherwise they will simply move the money somewhere else where there is money to be made.
The making of power stations has to remain private, that is where companies can grow and attract shareholders. At the moment growth in profits and dividends is coming just from customers bills going up.
No inflated egos, enormous salaries or kickbacks to supporters (‘stakeholders’) in state operation?
If you control 100% of the energy in 2040, you will control the people … cut electricity and the entire economy comes to a standstill. This will end up as the next saga of a MadMax movie.
Oh it’s much worse than that! We have smart meters coming, mate. They can be switched off remotely by government. Yes, really.
We already have ‘smart meters’ … an edict of a local council building regulations. I do my damnedest to ensure that we install the barest minimum in our developments that makes it extremely difficult for ‘them’ to manage consumption remotely.
They installed a bunch of ‘smart meters’ here. Then they uninstalled them again when they demonstrated a remarkable tendency to catch fire.
when power goes out here (as it often does) I can still cook and heat part of house using my propane oven.
cannot imagine myself purposely choosing electric stove solely due to this reason.
lng would also work instead of propane of course, just was easier to go with propane tanks here.
I’m surprised that TGOBJC, being in the ‘trade’, hasn’t advised that LNG wouldn’t be as useful as LPG because the latter’s calorific value is ~250% (by volume) that of LNG.
The same situation exists for natural gas. A house consumes $100 a month in electricity. That is the energy equivalent of about $100 worth of gasoline. About 30 gallons a month. A gallon a day of gasoline, or about 2.5 kg of natural gas equivalent a day.
It never fails me. I can predict with 100% accuracy that any failing on the part of those in power will be attributable to the failure of the grammar school education system.
If only poor schooling were true. Then we could fix it. Unfortunately we fail to fully understand and appreciate the ability of otherwise well-educated adult sheeple to throw brain cells and sense onto the garbage heap to follow carrots and pretty music blindly over the cliff irrespective of which grammar school was attended.
Monckton ascribes to the failings of grade school education what should be laid at the feet of adults who in spite of their early years behind a school desk memorizing their times tables, are just plain stupid as adults.
It doesn’t detract from your overall argument, but I think in your paragraph about the efficiency of electric vehicles, your figure of transmission and distribution losses of 67% is a bit on the low side. Transmission and distribution losses account for about 7% (UK) there are further losses from the distribution to the domestic supply, but they aren’t enough to take the figure down to 67%
“…your figure of transmission and distribution losses of 67% is a bit on the low side.”
To clarify, he said: “…transmission to end user is 67% efficient…” That means losses of 33%, compared to your 7%, which sounds more reasonable, as you say.
Another verbose essay from the Good Lord that is wrong from the start and continues in the same style.
Lord M says
“On the very evening when the first October snow in 74 years was falling outside in Parliament Square, the Mother of Parliaments went gaga and nodded through the Climate Change Act 2008”
Wrong – it snowed in October in the early 1980s in central London – I was living there at the time.
Lord M also says
“Now the red herrings are coming home to roost. The staggering cost of the near-universal scientific illiteracy to which half a century of Marxist State education has reduced even the governing class is becoming all too painfully apparent”
So very, very wrong.
Millions of us in the UK enjoyed a liberal and open education where science played a key part through the 1960s to 1980s and it did not have (thankfully) even a whiff of Marxism about it. But Lord M of all people should know that of the GOVERNING classes, many went to public schools – as is well known. For many decades the output from Britain’s top fee paying, totally NOT state education, public schools have supplied the Governing classes.
Lord M just makes it up as he goes along to suit his world view.
Hello James
What do you think of the Nazca vandalism?
Hello mpainter – that’s an easy one – Greenpeace should not have done it and they have said so.
Should GP identify the perpetrators?
So far, they refuse to.
It was a GE-Hitachi boiling water reactor that went wrong during the tsunami. Now, no much chance of a tsunami in the UK, but how about a Candu?
This post reminded me of a Science Fiction story by C.M. Kornbluth, “The Marching Morons”.
Here’s a link.
http://mysite.du.edu/~treddell/3780/Kornbluth_The-Marching-Morons.pdf
When I first read it, i thought it was farce. Unfortunately, it now appers to be stark, gut wrenching, reality.
Read it when it was published. Have never forgotten it. Yes, here we are.
James Abbott says:
Millions of us in the UK enjoyed a liberal and open education where science played a key part through the 1960s to 1980s and it did not have (thankfully) even a whiff of Marxism about it.
Well, they have certainly made up for lost time.
Abbott says:
Lord M just makes it up as he goes along to suit his world view.
Pure projection, Mr Abbott. Look up ‘projection’.
dbstealey – sorry, but not for the first time I have no idea what you are saying there. Are you posting just for the sake at coming back to me ?
Lord M was clearly wrong on both the points I raised. If you did a poll of people in the UK and asked them about the eduction of the governing classes you would get a big majority recognising that the governing classes have a direct route to their positions NOT via state schools but via fee paying schools:
50% of Members of the House of Lords
36% of the Cabinet
33% of all MPs
22% of the Shadow Cabinet
– in each case a much higher percentage than for the population as a whole.
And if you asked the question “do you think that state education in the last 50 years has been a marxist project leading to scientific illiteracy, you would get some good loud laughs – as the proposal deserves.
And guess where the Good Lord went to school ? A state school of which he knows so much about ?
Nope. Harrow. A fee paying exclusive school where this year board and tuition would set you back £34,000.
James Abbott
Have you publicly condemned the Nazca vandals? Have you demanded that your GreenPeace superiors reveal the names of those who vandalized the Nazca monument? Which so far they have refused to do, despite the Peru government’s demands.
James Abbott,
For someone who was educated at a school costing £34,000 a year, that convinces me he knows far more than you.
That is confirmed by your mistaken belief that Marxism isn’t infesting UK education, just like it infests U.S. public education.
Since you think you know more than Lord Monckton, why not submit your own article here? Then you would see what potshots from the peanut gallery are like.
James Abbott
Lord Monckton has provided a long and cogent article attacking the UK energy policy which is supported by all the major UK political parties and is being implemented by the present right-of-center Tory-led government.
You have replied saying
Really!? It “is wrong from the start and continues in the same style” ?
Clearly, if your assertion is true then you must have some powerful refutations of the attacks on UK energy policy. But you provide NO refutations of the cogent attacks from Lord Monckton.
Instead of addressing the argument from Lord Monckton, you
(a) dispute when it did or did not snow in October
and
(b) you object – rightly – to his assertion that UK education is “Marxist”.
Those are the totality of your objections to Lord Monckton’s article!
Thankyou for your demonstration that you cannot fault the argument of Lord Monckton which explains that UK energy policy is mad.
Richard
Wave Energy company Oceanlinx, formerly Energetech, goes into liquidation, taking out australian taxpayers’ money (plus oversease investors money) & there’s a single belated MSM report today, which is behind a paywall!
Millions wiped out in clean energy failure
The Australian-9 hours ago
Wave energy developer Oceanlinx went into liquidation last week after a … of the clean energy company could be much more than $80 million. … alive, claiming that too little time had been granted to enable his interests to bid …
yet this nonsense is all over the media, including radio & tv, this morning:
23 Dec: ABC AM: Climate Change Authority casts doubt on emissions reduction fund’s long term effectiveness
SIMON SANTOW: The Federal Government’s under renewed pressure over the centrepiece of its Direct Action climate policy – the $2.5 billion emissions reduction fund (ERF).
(Bernie Fraser, Chairman, Climate Change Authority): “The funding of the kind of scale that would be necessary to deal with the extra emissions reductions that Australia will have to pursue to do its bit to reduce global emissions makes it quite fanciful I think to think that the ERF could be scaled up and funded to the degree that one would think would be necessary”…
(John Connor, CEO Climate Institute): “The debate is shifting into even deeper reductions that we need to have beyond 2020 and it shows that the emissions reduction fund is just an inadequate tool to be the primary tool for emission reductions, while the renewable energy target is a critical target that we need to be strengthening, not weakening. And while we’re going to need other policies which actually put limits on pollution from our big polluters.”…
http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2014/s4153524.htm
Guardian: Direct Action unlikely to meet emissions target, says Climate Change Authority
Sydney Morning Herald: Direct Action: Climate Change Authority questions the efficiency and effectiveness of Emissions Reduction Fund
Sky News: CCA says Direct Action won’t meet target
Oceanlinx/Energetech is mentioned in this billion dollar failure of CAGW policies:
5 Dec: Bloomberg: Louise Downing: Marine Power May Suffer More Casualties After Siemens Tidal Sale
The downfall of two leading marine-energy developers is damping hope that the emerging industry, which has already lost almost $1 billion, will ever get the technology to market…
Pelamis Wave Power Ltd., once a client of EON SE, Germany’s biggest utility, said last month it had run out of money. Days later Siemens AG (SIE) announced it’s selling Marine Current Turbines Ltd…
Already the top 20 wave and tidal-stream businesses have amassed losses of $903 million over their lifetimes, according to BNEF data…
“This is the capitalist survival-of-the-fittest process working as normal in any new market area,” McCrone said by e-mail…
As other renewables such as solar and wind have reduced cost to become commercially viable, waves and tides remain the most expensive sources of power, costing four times more than coal, BNEF estimates…
Oceanlinx Ltd. and Wavebob Ltd. both failed in the past 18 months, and Ocean Power Technologies Inc., one of the only listed marine energy businesses, canceled a project inAustralia. Aquamarine Power Ltd., which is working with SSE Plc in the U.K., said this week it planned to cut jobs. Pelamis had been looking for a partner since 2011.
“The industry is looking at the wrong place for funding,”said Matthew Clayton, executive director of Triodos Renewables Plc, which sold a share in MCT in 2012 because it was too risky.“People are looking to the renewables sector for it, and it in many respects remains pure venture capital.” ..
***Taxpayers Step Up
While financiers get cold feet, governments have stepped in to support the industry through grants, guaranteed power prices and research and testing facilities. They are excited by the potential scale of marine energy.
In the U.K., it’s estimated to be capable of delivering as much as one-fifth of current power needs, and the government has set a guaranteed price of 305 pounds ($478) a megawatt-hour, more than double that of offshore wind…
Ed Davey, the energy secretary, said at a conference onNov. 26 that the government believes post-2020 marine energy will have a much bigger role to play in meeting low-carbon targets…
In Australia, marine energy could provide more than 35 percent of power, according to the Australian Clean Energy Council, a renewables industry group. The Australian Renewable Energy Agency has provided about A$43 million ($36 million) in grants since 2012…
The industry and especially wave power remains “some years” away from commercialization, and while governments are doing what they can, they can’t be expected to bear the whole cost of development, said McCrone. That means technologies are dependent on winning over venture capitalists and engineering companies that have grown “skeptical,” he said.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-12-05/marine-power-may-suffer-more-casualties-after-siemens-tidal-sale.html
They are also going to install 1.2 GW of new nuclear capacity each year (the equivalent of two nuclear submarines).
You greatly overestimate the power output of nuclear sub plants.
Ah. I see it was already noted: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/12/22/the-economics-of-the-madhouse/#comment-1819498
Figure roughly 60,000 SHP or about 50MWe.
What means of power will the British military be using?
Wind-powered tanks?
Solar powered submarines?
The mind boggles…
Lord Monckton should be ashamed of so factually weak an article. Whilst he is right to question the wisdom and feasibility of policies to reduce emissions by the amount aspired, he does the sceptic case no favours by adopting the tactics of climate change protagonists and politicians – selective half truths designed only to support a predetermined conclusion. To further the argument he should avoid confusing aspirations with actual legislation, and report timescales accurately
It is also clear that over the next 20 – 50 years there may be major changes in technology which could deliver substantial reductions in both:
consumption – eg led lamps, more efficient vehicles, better building insulation etc
generation – eg more efficient PV, heat recovery, tidal and wind generation, increased nuclear
This is not to suggest the aspiration is capable of delivery solely through technological change, but would present a more balanced point of view.
You don’t have to do it by mandate if it makes economical sense.
M. Simon, correctomundo! Concise and to the point.
Terry, listen up, please…
1. Government is force
2. Good ideas do not have to be forced on others
3. Bad ideas should not be forced on others
4. Liberty is necessary for the difference between good ideas and bad ideas to be revealed
You could pay $100,000 for an Econ education and never learn the above.
ur welcome. ☺
“It is also clear that over the next 20 – 50 years there may be major changes in technology which could deliver substantial reductions in both: consumption – eg led lamps, more efficient vehicles, better building insulation etc generation – eg more efficient PV, heat recovery, tidal and wind generation, increased nuclear ”
Mere hand-waving with nothing behind it but a maybe. “Maybe” is not exactly a factually strong argument, is it, Terry?
To believe that 23m UK households will drop gas in favour of renewable heating is a fantasy that could only be dreamed up but the same loons who came up with the Green Deal. A very basic understanding of thermal math smashes the argument that the UK’s ageing housing stock can switch to renewable heating. Unfortunately, the DECC will stick to its unloaded guns.
No natural gas.
No petrol.
Good, that is where we need to go. I doubt they can make the time frames stick, though.
in maine here and it often hits -15 F (not talking wind chill either) and I often lose electrical power.
glad to see you want me to freeze.
you’re a true pal….but since I do use gas and oil my generator can power me well enough (furnace is 110v forced air) to keep me alive. sorry buddy.
I think UK industry should go on strike. I know many EU companies are moving units to USA because of the low cost of energy. A major item not considered in the ‘economics’ is the cost of things, especially energy intensive things. A jar for putting mayonaise, jam, beverages… in used to cost about 35 to 50cents 10-15yrs ago. What do they cost today in places like UK – maybe 3 times that? This might tax the average household as much as it costs them for heat and light.
It should not be overlooked that their destroying the economy, impoverishing the people, and getting rid of cars and gasoline fits the needs of Agenda 21 perfectly. This is what they want. There will be massive deaths as winters get worse, starvation to follow, seriously decreased standard of living, and poverty for all. Yes, the UN’s Agenda 21 is being actively pursued in the UK! The massive die-off should be those who are pushing this evil agenda, as they are executed for crimes against humanity.
Please excuse me for shouting MADNESS!
There’s probably an EU diktat that bans yelling “Fire” in an inferno.
I think the inefficiency (weight penalty, etc.) of electric cars is overstated here. The Tesla Model S, with a large curb weight of 4,637 pounds, has an equivalent fuel efficiency of 89 MPGe. With 50% generating efficiency and 67% combined transmission/distribution efficiency, this works out to 29.8 miles per gasoline gallon equivalent of fossil fuel energy used at power plants for charging the car’s battery. One thing electric cars tend to have is regenerative braking, which non-hybrid gasoline and diesel cars do not have.
Since the EPA MPGe figures are “wall to wheel” rather than “battery to wheel”, the charging efficiency does not matter for MPGe.
The overall numbers largely make sense, but I think the lack of advantage of electric cars is somewhat overstated by considering charging losses and neglecting recovery of braking losses by regenerative braking.
But modern gasoline cars turn off the gas when braking, so regenerative braking wouldn’t help that much. Unless the light changes right as I approach it, I’m normally rolling to a stop with my foot hovering over the brake pedal, during which time I’m burning no gas at all.
“the advantage is more than canceled by the very large cost of total battery replacement every few years.”
But total battery replacement has never happened for the now old Prius. They are running just fine. And they are are more than a “few years” old.
“But modern gasoline cars turn off the gas when braking”
Huh? I have a Fit, and it idles when braking. It does not “turn off the gas”.
“I have a Fit, and it idles when braking. It does not “turn off the gas”.”
Uh, yes, it does.
At least, the Civic does, so I’d be amazed if the Fit doesn’t. When you’re braking, the engine keeps turning because it’s connected to the wheels, so the ECU turns off the fuel injectors.
“…
What is worse, not only gas but also gasoline is to be phased out. All cars are to become electric by the 2040s. Just like that.
…”
May one also assume that all snow plows, all ambulances, all emergency utility repair vehicles, police cars, government vehicles, etc. will be electric? If not, why not?
As a wise Germany retreats, others press onwards with suicide attacks on their own economies.
http://northeastwindmills.com/germany-joins-countries-retreating-from-expensive-green-energy-revolution/
The staggering cost of the near-universal scientific illiteracy to which half a century of Marxist State education has reduced even the governing class is becoming all too painfully apparent.
I would suggest that instead of making pollitical points Viscount Monckton of Brenchley faces the truth that it is actually the social snobbery of the aristocratic classes controlling the three main UK parties that is to blame.
One needs to look no further than Churchill and his Blenheim palace forbears with his “engineers should be on tap not on top to see why the case against the climate scientists is ignored and to understand Britain’s stupidity.”
Sadly the case for climate change can readily be made with verbal diarrhea but the case against requires understanding that is both specialised and mathematical to a degree that it is clearly well beyond that of climate scientists.
Whether there is change is a function not of climate science understanding but of signal analysis and a true grasp of the underlying trends which if there is any cyclic component cannot be predicted by a linear extrapolation as we see continually in this field.
The original data accuracy and limits is purely an engineering function with little or no climate expertise needed so again we are taking the word of untrained amateurs against professionals out of pure class warfare.
The compute modelling is capable of being assessed by professionals from half a dozen spheres who are all agreed that it is sadly over simplistic and totally dishonest to claim anything but a vague possibility as the true value of its predictions. Sadly all these are associated in some way with trade so a “scientist” outranks them even when proven wrong.
It is time to face up to Britain’s real problem.
Is the Green party contolled by the filthy aristos too? How else do you explain their particular brand of madness?
Margaret Thatcher’s life story contradicts you at nearly every point.
“Is the Green party contolled by the filthy aristos too?
No.
The green party is simply a fringe party of no relevance whatever in mainstream politics on a par at best with the monster raving loony party. the green’s power is dominantly in hidden financial controllers. As for Margaret Thatcher she was a maverick that has always been present in politics but as long as she wanted the same as the aristocratic ruling class was presented as the open face of politics. The moment she started to question the green agenda that among others Goldsmith was promoting and wanted a fair deal for the Nottingham miners she was stabbed in the back as far as politics was concerned. I think history will however put her among the greats of 20th century politicians if not the very top as other potential great ones did more harm in the long term than they did good.
She won me over when i had to deliver something to Westminster and she was firstly totally sober and secondly went out of her way to show me where I needed to go so i admit to bias in her favour. A lovely person.
The climate conspirators at the UN are actually demanding immunity from prosecution worldwide now. From this story, it’s obvious why. The evidence of their criminal fraud is so plain now that they fear for their freedom.
Dear Sir, I can see two immediate problems with banning gas and diesel. When the wind doesn’t blow Windmills need a diesel generator in the base to turn the mill. If they remain at rest for any time the blades distort and the bearings damage due to the weight. There also needs to be backup gas turbines to supply the grid when the mills cannot. How will this be overcome without diesel and gas? Mick G From: Watts Up With That? To: mickgreenhough@yahoo.co.uk Sent: Monday, 22 December 2014, 18:47 Subject: [New post] The economics of the madhouse #yiv2998490307 a:hover {color:red;}#yiv2998490307 a {text-decoration:none;color:#0088cc;}#yiv2998490307 a.yiv2998490307primaryactionlink:link, #yiv2998490307 a.yiv2998490307primaryactionlink:visited {background-color:#2585B2;color:#fff;}#yiv2998490307 a.yiv2998490307primaryactionlink:hover, #yiv2998490307 a.yiv2998490307primaryactionlink:active {background-color:#11729E;color:#fff;}#yiv2998490307 WordPress.com | Guest Blogger posted: “The Children’s Coalition’s insane war on natural gasBy Christopher Monckton of BrenchleyOn the very evening when the first October snow in 74 years was falling outside in Parliament Square, the Mother of Parliaments went gaga and nodded through th” | |
I would like to see the name calling abated. We can’t do much about the warmists and alarmists doing it, but I’d like it much better if we didn’t follow suit. We would be in a much better position to help them make the bridges to cross when their boat sinks.
We would be in a much better position to help them make the bridges to cross when their boat sinks.
Who wants bridges when their boat sinks. Some of us want compensation for green taxation and heads to roll for the the criminal deception involved in the claims made for the science being beyond question. Possibly even for manslaughter charges for the unnecessary deaths from energy poverty. These “scientists ” and their front men had not qualms about shredding their superiors who disagreed when they had the whip hand and they must pay for that with interest. I don’t believe in turn the other cheek.
“Though the longevity of electric autos is 50% greater than that of internal-combustion autos, the advantage is more than canceled by the very large cost of total battery replacement every few years.”
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i do not know where Lord Monckton gets the idea that the longevity of electric autos is 50% greater than that of the internal combustion autos, and I would question the accuracy of that statement, although I fully agree with the last part of the sentence about longevity being more than cancelled out by the need to replace batteries.
My dad was one of the early pioneers in electric cars in the UK, having had an electric car back in the 1980s. It had an aluminium body so it did not corrode but the batteries had to be replaced every 3 to 4 years. Mechanically, it had no serious problems but then again because it had no range, it did no mileage. Maximum 2000 miles a year (probably less), just popping in to town to do a bit of shopping or to the pub for a drink or to a restauraut for something to eat (my dad always got a free charge even from high street shops, it was such a novelty to see electric cars in those days, and this was before health & safety would have prevented running a power lead over a pavement – in those days people could be relied upon to pick up their feet and not trip over a cable on the foot path).
In contrast I have a couple of oldish internal combustion cars (45 and 41 years old ,one of which I have owned for over 35 years). mechanically they are fine, notwithstanding one having driven a few hundred thousand miles, the other is a little fickle having a race engine so it has not done that many miles, but I can see no substantial reason why either of these cars cannot go on for another 50 or so years (petrol willing).
Most people change cars because of fads, or as a social status, not because the car is in some way unreliable. If one wants to go green, this is best achieved by keeping a car running rather than scrapping and replacing. The cash for bangers was environmentally a very poor policy.
The Climate Change Act is madness, it should be repealled ASAP.
I encourage everyont to sign the gov-petition to repeal the CCA.
Most atmospheric CO2 is volcanogenic. How is Davey to stop that?
Stand near the crater’s edge whilst wearing slippery shoes, Mr. Davey.
Then whilst chanting the Mantra “Save us from a 2 degrees rise”,
dance the “Hokey Cokey” at the crater rim. Cape Verde’s “Fogo”
might be most convenient to the United Kingdom.
In a substantial part of the world heatpumps are still the most efficient en cost-effective ways of heating/cooling. It baffles me why this system isn’t more widespread in Europe. All that need to be done is get rid of the idiotic stranglehold regulations caused by the ‘manmade’ ozone-hole hoax in order to use high-yield refrigerants again instead of low-yield combustible gases such as butane.
It’s not about energy. It’s not about money. It’s about aligning the citizenry on the common task of saving the planet. An aligned citizenry can be controlled absolutely.
Bankrupting wealthy nations is part of the strategy to move towards one world government. The economic issue is not what things “cost” in monetary terms, but the fact that we still allow central banks to print counterfeit currency and charge interest on it.
The global warming scam is deliberately designed to increase the speed of national debt accumulation so that the middle class can be wiped out in Western Nations and only an elite are left to dictate global policy through the U.N. and similar bodies.
European nations that have already committed massive investments to Renewable Energy.
Conservatively in capital costs alone this amounts to at least ~$0.5 trillion to provide ~2.9% of European Generating capacity.
Renewable Energy costs are about 16 times more than gas fired generation and it has 5.7 times less productive capacity i.e. only about ~17.5%.
For the full data see:
https://edmhdotme.wordpress.com/a-comparison-of-both-the-capital-cost-and-energy-production-effectiveness-of-the-renewable-energy-in-europe/
This investment has resulted in a “nominal” ~30Gigawatts of electrical Generating Capacity from an installed Nameplate Capacity of ~169Gigawatts. It was installed at ~16 times the capital cost of conventional Gas Fired generation and provides 17.5% of the its nameplate capacity.
As is well proven in France, the most effective way of controlling and reducing CO2 emissions is by the use of Nuclear power for electricity generation. CO2 emissions per head in France are now at 75% of CO2 emissions per head in China.
At the resulting price $16.87 billion/Gigawatt for Renewable Energy, replacement of the 1024GW European Generating fleet would cost about $17.3trillion, a sum close to the whole annual GDP of the European Union.
But the “nominal” 30GW of Renewable Energy production is not really as useful as one would wish, because of its intermittency and non-dispatchability.
These uneconomic investments have been promoted by government subsidies and other government market manipulation.
But the expense of the policies has been loaded mainly on the electrical bills of Electricity customers:
these policies have already caused very substantial hardship to poorer individuals in European society
these policies are severely damaging the competitiveness of European industries.
and further data at
https://edmhdotme.wordpress.com
Christopher Monckton,
It has become sort of a tradition over the years here at WUWT for you to post an article very close to the Holiday Season that occurs around NH winter solstice period. You always stimulate vivid and lively discourse for that holiday period; that’s for sure.
Christopher, Happy Holiday Season to you.
I’ll leave you with a humorous thought:
parody on/
Is it ethical to shout ‘Madhouse’ in The world’s most
viewedcrowded site on global warming and climate change? Doing so might result in Alarmist intellectuals in such chaos that they might injure their associates’ and their own feelings. : )parody off/
John
Are there almost 1,500 seats in the UK Parliament? Does this mean that with only 3 dissenters against the Climate Change Act of 2008 that there was approximately a 99.7% consensus on significant climate change by CO2 from burning fossil fuels?
WOW!
Thinking about that, then to me it is a lesson learned on the importance of having a highly diverse non-global culture. Some countries of independent thought might have a good reason to avoid that kind of WOW.
John
richardscourtney
Can I suggest its a bit of leap to say
“Thankyou for your demonstration that you cannot fault the argument of Lord Monckton which explains that UK energy policy is mad.”
just because I choose not to go through his latest article line by line. I could do, but life is too short.
Many times on this site I have suggested that Lord M is not a good cheerleader for the sceptic community and have said why in terms of his claimed status, extraordinary claims on many subjects (check out health issues) and lack of scientific credibility – notably in cherry picking data to suit his case.
But for your satisfaction here are two examples of tosh from the Good Lord in his article:
“Already, 60% of Scotland’s landscape has windmills scarring it.”
That is a wild exaggeration.
“Though the longevity of electric autos is 50% greater than that of internal-combustion autos, the advantage is more than canceled by the very large cost of total battery replacement every few years. No allowance for this extra cost is made”
Electric car batteries do not need replacing “every few years” routinely. The replacement period depends on several factors including the type of battery used, the conditions they are used under and the mileage done. The more advanced batteries under moderate use can last 10 years. Industry reviews point to 5 years typically. So Lord M has chosen to use the very lower end of the range of battery lifetimes to build his case – which is more cherry picking – similar to the way he uses the temperature data set that delivers the smallest warming trend.
Dear Lord. 60 percent of Scotland’s landscapes covered by wind farms …..60 percent……surely not?