Polly Toynbee: Cancelling British Renewable Subsidies Destroyed the Industry

When a climate prediction actually comes true, then many predictions consistently comes true, people will naturally start to listen. Otherwise, no.

Interesting – talking about everyday fear. I have spent almost 50 years on this planet and have not a SINGLE day worried about the climate or weather despite being for weeks in extreme situations of a) very cold (>-40degC) or very hot (>40degC) environments. However, I have COUNTLESS days and weeks during which I worried and still worry about the amount of taxes, food costs, about proper shelter and accommodation, and our health system. I worry about the rising food prices and our everyday bills for commodities and what the government is collecting. I also worry about the amount of drugs circulating around our kids and how we will manage to pay for education. The amount of domestic violence and abuse we hear about around us. Interestingly, she thinks there is a fearfactor from the Trump presidency. I am more worried about other “leaders” who squander hard earned money on “uneconomic” things or introduce more taxes or make life more expensive such as we see in Australia, Germany, Canada, Sweden, Denmark, than a hopefully economic-thinking new US president. Stop creating fear and do some positive outlooking!

“Another proposed executive order would require all Cabinet departments to disclose and pause current work being done in connection with Obama’s initiatives to curb carbon emissions to combat climate change.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-idUSKBN1532T3?il=0

Like with all Climate related Doom and Destiny talk, predictions will someday come true, renewable’s were about to become economic, taxation and lifestyle will be beneficial for mankind, there is no alternative (for you). The only reason you cannot reason or understand, you are too simpleton to think for yourself, only people in power can think for the for you. The only way to resolve ‘their’ problems if for you to do it for them, through your actions, not theirs. If you question the message they call you names, you are a denier, a racist, a xenophobe, a ‘deplorable’. If something fails it is because someone else did not do something correctly. If they don’t get their way, they spit anger, cry, wail, blame everyone else, then isolate themselves in a cocoon of moral superiority. I see it time and time again.
As an outsider, it is very interesting behavior to observe, even entertaining at times. I would love to call this the “You” syndrome. Just need to make it into a acronym.

I wonder if all energy production of whatever type have had subsidies withdrawn?

Toynbee, like the rest of the Green Brigade, lefty politicians. and the renewable energy suppliers continually talk of “savings” and how cheap renewable energy is becoming, but out of ignorance or simple misinformation mean savings for them and not their customers. They all conveniently ignore the fact that wind and solar power is not a base load power supply, i.e. not a supply that provides power when needed, but power when available. When there is no/low wind or no/low sun then wind turbines and solar panels cannot meet current power demands and as such these renewable power supplies – if provided, also require almost equal capacity of standby base load power which is run inefficiently and thus very expensively simply to maintain power supplies by interfacing and accommodating current and capriciously varying under capacity outputs from WT’s and SP’s.
In the UK, independent studies called for by the government determined that only Gas Turbines have the flexibility and ability to provide this back up facility. We now have the unbelievable situation that Wind Turbine and Solar Panel operators require subsidies to make them commercially viable, and also require extended and additional Power Transmission works to feed SP, and particularly WT power from their remote sites to areas of actual power demand. The GT back up suppliers require subsidies to make their operations commercially viable – operating inefficiently at under capacity and intermittently. In addition, with WT’s as an example, the GT standbys within a WT/GT standby base load system produce as much as 75% of their overall system power output – all with their own CO2 emissions, i.e. even if CO2 emission reductions are needed this is a grossly inefficient system. The UK also imposes priority use of WT’s where output is available. The overall systems’ costs using WT’s are massively more, particularly now as gas prices are much lower. Toynbee talks of Carbon Capture – it was abandoned simply because no viable or remotely cost effective and reliable system has been provided. If one was available, even at R&D prototype stage, don’t you think the coal mine owners, let alone the Green Brigade and Renewable Energy Suppliers would be queuing up to invest?
You couldn’t dream up anything even more bizarre and unbelievable. Power Suppliers should be required to provide only base load systems, which may or may not include renewables such as WT’s and SP’s; let the Suppliers choose simply by forcing them to do investment analyses of such overall system works and not cherry pick the renewable power generation elements in isolation. Subsidies, in all forms, should also be cancelled and then the market will decide in what is a cost-leadership commodity market. Pressures will be put on Suppliers to cut costs and drive down prices and, if renewables are needed, they would have to spend on R&D for base load renewable systems in order to maintain market share and even to survive.
The fracking experience in the USA which gave cheaper gas prices and led to significant CO2 emission reductions was the result of such free market pressures – coal fired plants couldn’t compete and were shut down.

Storage will be solved before the power density problem, and it’s anybody’s guess when the storage nut will be cracked.
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Worse kind of champagne socialist. Do as I say, not as I do.
Champions state eduction, whilst sending her kids to private schools.
Champions the poor, whilst living in luxury.
Champions climate change, whilst jetting off to her villa in Tuscany.

I think the good news is that there must be no Klimate Kool-Aid left: Polly Toynbee has clearly drunk all of it.

I think it all comes down to this: If they’re wrong – and their opposition is neither evil, nor irrational, nor ignorant and possibly right about a few things – then there’s nothing special about them.
And that can’t be.
Because they are oh, so special.

Dave in Hampshire, England
6500 highly subsidise windmills are producing less than 3% of our power at 16:00 on 20th January 2017!
We have had an anticyclone sitting over the UK most of the week, so little wind, sun is not very powerful and days short, I can’t wait to see the headlines in the Guardian telling us this fact. It was them who distorted the facts when they crowed that 28% of our power on Christmas day was from wind – it was very windy and demand was less than half of a normal working day, and it mild.
Perhaps with smart metering we can have users decide if they wish to opt for Green tariffs, but they will have to accept that they will be cut off when demand exceeds supply from renewals, or they get an option to pay all the cost of any stand-by equipment required to in-fill their supply if they want to retain their power.
Those of us who are not convinced that windmills are the answer, can continue with our gas turbines, coal and hopefully micro-nuclear power stations, and avoid contributing to the money making machines.