Europe Is Falling Out Of Love With Renewables
The Danish government has announced a new proposal to resolve the problem of the renewable energy tax (PSO) which the EU believes to be illegal and which has become markedly more expensive for businesses and citizens than planned. Climate and Energy Minister Lars Christian Lilleholt will cancel all coastal wind turbines which were agreed to be built in 2012 and promises to replace them with a new offshore wind farm in 2025. “When I think back on the energy agreement from 2012, it was a mistake that agreed to build the coastal wind turbines,” he said. –Naja Dandanell and Marchen Neel Gjertsen, Jyllands-Posten, 7 June 2016
Denmark Cancels All Coastal Wind Farms, Delays New Built Until 2025
Naja Dandanell and Marchen Neel Gjertsen,
The Danish government has announced a new proposal to resolve the problem of the renewable energy tax (PSO) which the EU believes to be illegal and which has become markedly more expensive for businesses and citizens than planned.
Climate and Energy Minister Lars Christian Lilleholt will cancel all coastal wind turbines which were agreed to be built in 2012 and promises to replace them with a new offshore wind farm in 2025.
The cancellation of the coastal wind turbines will save the country around 7 billion Krones ($1 billion). And when the new offshore wind farm will be constructed from 2025 onwards there will be ample budgets then.
“For me there is no doubt that an offshore wind farm located far out at sea will be a much better solution,” says Lars Christian Lilleholt who also believes in the visual benefit of offshore wind turbines which cannot be seen from land.
The government has long sought to postpone the coastal wind turbines and the minister has now pulled the plug completely on the controversial projects.
“When I think back on the energy agreement from 2012, it was a mistake that agreed to build the coastal wind turbines,” he said. [….]
Translation GWPF
see also
Denmark Cuts Green Tax, Scaps Offshore Wind Farms
Denmark’s Liberal Government To Roll Back Renewable Energy Policy
h/t to Dr. Benny Peiser of the GWPF
The next crisis in “renewables” will be that long unused wind turbines are just dangerous eyesores that no wind power company has the reserves to decommission. So, government will be asked to provide the funds to “beautify” and “reclaim” the natural vista that was spoiled by wind turbines.
What an expensive folly.
Exactly so.
This is a result of the process that privatizes profits and socializes losses. Another way of saying it is ‘Socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor’. link The shareholders lose whatever they have invested and they get to walk away otherwise scot-free. Everyone else has to clean up the mess, no matter how much it costs.
Might be interesting to recycle them as air conditioner fans…
What makes those who believe that burning fossil fuels affects the climate think that generating all our energy from wind or solar would not similarly affect the climate? After all, windmills slow down the wind, and solar panels change the reflectivity of the earth.
The whole premise of putting any energy system on or in saltwater is just insane. Just having a boat in a harbor slip and never going to sea requires constant upkeep. Wind turbines on land have enormous maintenance issues. Exposing all of that tech to ocean environment is certifiable.
and all those on board diesel generators have to be refilled.
For offshore that’s min. 1 boat, 7 man for 7 days a week :
2 elelectricians/mechanics for overhaule/repair
2 man general maintanence
3 man for the concrete base and for metal like stairs and railing decorroding + new paint.
After all it’s windparks in salt water!
Not forgetting bosun and mate
Gonzo,
for offshore that’s min. 1 boat, 7 man for 7 days a week :
2 elelectricians/mechanics for overhaule/repair
2 man general maintanence
3 man for the concrete base and for metal like stairs and railing decorroding + new paint.
After all it’s windPARKS in salt water!
These seem to work for extended periods completely submerged…
http://www.emec.org.uk/marine-energy/tidal-devices/
(elsewhere on that site see examples installed through winter on N Scottish sea bed)
I am staggered that any authority permits offshore windmills, and I see this idiot wants to build them so far out at see that they cannot be seen from the shore. I’m sure that will make members of the merchant marine happy – ever navigated in fog, even with modern navigation aids? The, of course, they will become obsolete, and who will remove their remains – right down to the original seabed? Madness, quite apart from the total lack of justification at the planning stage!
They’ve twigged that people don’t want these damned things cluttering up their countryside, just take a drive from Luxemburg to Germany, across the Hartz Mountains, to see how windmills have polluted the view. Since Governments have bought into CAGW & have to be seen to be “Doing Something” about it and nuclear power is an unpopular option, then the only way is to shove the things offshore.
I’m surprised no bulk cargo carrier hasn’t lost power/steering in a storm and blundered into one of these offshore wind subsidy farms yet.
Smart politics. Defer it well into the future, knowing that the average voter has a memory of 18 months or less, and promise to build it out of sight, so that very few people will know whether it is being built or not.
Mr. Lilleholt knows the windfarm will not and should not be built, but he is very much aware of the sentiments of a significant part those that voted him into office.
Next door, Mother Merkel has already backed off some promises to the LGP (Left Green Progressives) lemmings regarding closure of their nuclear plants. Once she has been disposed due to various recent indiscretions, most likely the new incumbent will back the reintroduction of Germany’s nuclear capacity into mainstream electric power planning.
They need to consider exactly where to put these things and how far in they need to carry the cable based on this very informative piece of work:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bor.12142/epdf
Or maybe this article is why Denmark decided to not to put them on the shoreline now in the hopes the current crop of idiots and their “Earth is gonna fry” thinking will be gone when 2025 roles round.
In the mean time, any power plants located further South should be protected and cared for like our life depended on it. Because it does.
No, I suspect it has a lot more to do with this. The chart shows persistently high deficits over the past eight years. In short, the money well is running dry.
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/denmark/government-budget
Then look at this. Particularly the labour chart down just a bit. It shows all the worst symptoms: very high youth unemployment, stagnant wage growth and stagnant productivity.
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/denmark/unemployment-rate
Then look at this. A slowly declining industrial production rate after the fiscal crisis of 2008-9.
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/denmark/industrial-production
Now this:
https://www.ovoenergy.com/guides/energy-guides/average-electricity-prices-kwh.html
Denmark has the highest electricity rates in Europe and pretty much the entire industrial world. And it’s slowly strangling their entire economy. They’re simply experiencing what happens to all socialists; the party music stops when the money runs out.
Meanwhile, in the US, nearly every state is still slowly ramping up their “net metering” requirements. Power generators have to have a certain percentage of “renewable” energy, or pay large fines. Al Gore and his carbon credits are doing quite well, thank you very little.
“…And when the new offshore wind farm will be constructed from 2025 onwards there will be ample budgets then….”
Sure thing, buddy.
We’ve all seen footage of terrible disasters involving ships, boats and oil rigs in the North Sea.
Meanwhile I’m always amazed by how many of these offshore wind farms have popped up there. Every time I’m at sea there or doing an overflight, it seems there has been a new one.
Wild seas, active weather, offshore windmill towers, heavy marine traffic – what could possibly go wrong? / sarc
save the country around 7 billion Krones. Where does a Scando country find so many Krones?
Not enough EU money to fund millions of illegals who speak only Arabic, and subsidize wind and solar as well.
Changes of public policy are hard to do, so they implement moratoriums instead, and then make them extended infinitely. 2025 means the end of wind subsidies for that country.
Wind might be better than the bird frying solar plant planned for Port Lincoln in SA , at least death will be quicker and because they will be fried i suggest they value add by opening a restaurant onsite .
Just keep repeating Thorium, Thorium, Thorium……… until energy producers take note…….
What’s the matter with coal ? Oz has it in abundance , it’s cheap as chips and keeps people employed both digging it up and because the electricity produced is so cheap we would have a manufacturing industry again .
Hell we may even be able to compete with China , nah never happen !
Wind power has been tried and has failed in the most advanced countries on earth. At this point, it is clear that with current technology, wind power can’t provide even its own local energy requirements for construction and maintenance. Since wind turbines kill endangered birds and bats, cause adverse health effects with their infra-sound, and despoil the landscape, they are both economic parasites and environmental disasters.
To add to the posting by CaligulaJones (11:59 am) re electric cars (sales in Ontario aided by up to $14,000 subsidy), what is going to happen when the highways on which they run have to be repaired? At the moment this work is supposedly paid for by the taxes on motor fuel. So, what will happen when this money is not pouring into government coffers when electricity is used to recharge batteries? Has anyone in the “progressive” Ontario government thought this far ahead?
Ian M
Nobody seems to have told the UK offshore wind is over – 4 new wind farms announced (and 1 not going ahead) in last month…
http://renewables.seenews.com/news/edf-starts-work-at-blyth-offshore-wind-farm-in-uk-527780
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/business/news/statoil-cleared-to-begin-work-on-europes-largest-floating-wind-farm-34717564.html
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-36357539
http://www.thenational.ae/business/energy/masdar-secures-backing-for-uk-offshore-wind-plant
Also I noted:
“Eleven energy and technology firms said on Monday offshore wind can be as cheap as gas and coal within a decade”
http://uk.reuters.com/article/us-europe-energy-wind-idUKKCN0YS14R
Griff, this is all nonsense, and you know it. Britain announced it was canceling ON-shore wind subsidies in 2014. The result was the immediate termination of about 250 applications for new wind siting. And you want to boast about four OFF-shore projects which are still going ahead? Any future off-shore applications will get terminated as well should the British government decide it can’t use any more of that either and terminate their subsidization. And if you imagine that off-shore is cheaper than on-shore, let alone coal, gas or nuclear, you really are dreaming in technicolour.
The offshore wind farms are much bigger and have a much higher capacity.
Its the difference between a Cessna and a 747.
and the price of offshore is dropping to the same as gas (UK nuclear from Hinkley will produce electricity costing 3 times current rate: no one has priced other reactor schemes yet)
Bigger and higher capacity maybe, but they’re still losing out.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/after-years-of-growth-green-energy-investors-pull-back-from-europe-1454591209
Investment rate in Europe is running half of what it was in 2011.
Griff, I love the last link do you just believe every random press release from companies on the internet because they never lie. Mr Rossi has invented an E-Cat cold fusion generator that can generate the same energy as Eleven energy for next to nothing and he probably wants you to invest less than Eleven Energy, it’s all in his press release.
Tell you what Griff, I will write a press release that says I can produce all the energy you want for nothing from my perpetual energy machine all you need to do is send me a couple of million dollars …. Do we have a deal?
Anyhow go to bed safe in the knowledge Eleven Energy, Mr Rossi and I have the problem all solved just make sure you send the money.
I’ll swap shares in your new power company for some Florida beachfront property…
I’m just using links to easily accessible news items summarising trends. If you can be bothered to google it, you’ll find shedloads of checkable hard data.
Oh – this might interest you:
http://cleantechnica.com/2016/06/09/nsw-wind-farms-deliver-record-output-last-month/
Europe Is Falling Out Of Love With Renewables ???
Maybe, Anthony… I don’t follow the situations in GB nor in Denmark, and it is even not true for France, as it it never felt in.
{ I can only underline the following in GWPF’s translation of Jyllands-Posten’s article:
Climate and Energy Minister Lars Christian Lilleholt will cancel all coastal wind turbines which were agreed to be built in 2012 and promises to replace them with a new offshore wind farm in 2025. }
But as a person living in Germany I know a bit more of what happens in that land.
Even if in Europe Germany is considered as the most harmful CO2 emitter (with 0.9 Gt/y it is 6th or 7th in the world’s emitter ranking list), it is a fact that the country nevertheless is pushing hard in increasing the renewable rate in electricity production.
If we consider the period 2013-2015, we can see that the mix in electricity production (stats in delivered TWh, internal consumption excluded) reflets the push:
2013: fossile + nuke = 387 i.e. 73% / renew = 146 i.e. 27%
2014: 367 i.e. 70% / 156 i.e. 30%
2015: 360 i.e. 65% / 198 i.e. 35%
Here is the source for checking these stats:
https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/en/renewable-energy-data?set_language=en
The biggest increase (over 50% from 2014 to 2015) has been reached in the wind corner: Germany has, after years of tergiversation, prototyping and planning, now really started offshore wind power, and, if politics doesn’t suddenly change, 44 GW of that shall be installed by 2020 in german waters (i.e. more than the onshore farms alltogether).
French EDF is complaining about the 5 B€ missing in the “CSPE” ecoloon energy tax, and the State should use other taxes money to pay EDF. (I don’t know how this will end.)
But the medias are making a big deal with EDF money problems, and debt problems (*), without mentioning the 5 B€ missing that should have been paid as tax on electric energy. (The general tune is that nuclear is causing EDF problems or nuclear is too expensive, when the exact opposite is true.)
It’s clear now that the government isn’t ready to close any nuclear plant. The ecoloonatic electoral promises will stay as promises for the undetermined future.
(*) usually mixing liquidity issues and long term debt problem, I don’t even know if “economic” journalists understand that it isn’t exactly the same thing