By Andy May
According to the Wall Street Journal yesterday, due to a rare lack of North Sea wind, already high European energy prices are climbing higher.
“Gas and coal-fired electricity plants were called in to make up the shortfall from wind.
Natural-gas prices, already boosted by the pandemic recovery and a lack of fuel in storage caverns and tanks, hit all-time highs. Thermal coal, long shunned for its carbon emissions, has emerged from a long price slump as utilities are forced to turn on backup power sources.”
“Two U.K. energy retailers—PFP Energy and MoneyPlus Energy—went out of business when electricity prices spiked this month. The companies, with a combined 94,000 gas and power customers, didn’t return requests for comment.
Winners include U.S. and Russian companies exporting gas to Europe, as well as renewable-power suppliers producing electricity with near-zero operating costs. Shares of Cheniere Energy Inc., a major U.S. exporter of liquefied natural gas, have risen 47% this year.”
One would think the goal of renewables is to jack up energy prices.
Of course, more money for the producer and grid owner.
All while producing less energy.
My neighbour assures me that wind is already cheaper than coal and will continue to get cheaper.
Mind you, he does read the Guardian.
The guardian, is that actually reading.
At least they are not trying wind in Florida. Bad enough that they are trying solar, in view of all the cloudy days we have been seeing.
Not cheap when there is. I wind. Doesn’t matter how many windmills you have.
Yea, it is.
No, no, you don’t understand. Renewable Energy is making electricity cheaper every single day!
Yesterday it was cheaper than today. Today it’s cheaper than tomorrow.
A change in price from 25 Euros per MWh to 100 Euros per MWh is a decrease in price. If you disagree with this, you are guilty of Thought Crime, and will be arrested.
Nonsense Tom! Isn’t it obvious that if you add a solar panel or windmill costs go down 🤓
The only thing going down would prb’ly be the grid.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/12/13/grid-stability-basics/#comment-3145636
Good article, thank you.
I started writing about the abject failure of grid-connected wind and solar power generation in 2002.
Wind and solar power do NOT contribute significant economic electric power to the grid. Both fail due to intermittency and diffusivity – they vary too much and take up too much land.
These are proven facts, yet trillions of dollars have been wasted globally on this green energy fraud.
I posted the following , probably circa 2010, for our idiot politicians and the mainstream media:
“WIND POWER: IT DOESN’T JUST BLOW – IT SUCKS!”
“SOLAR POWER: STICK IT WHERE THE SUN DON’T SHINE!”
Apparently that is still too complicated for most media and politicians.
The industries and investors that benefit from the “green scam” have benefited greatly because the government set it to be that way. There was never any interest in providing “affordable power”. “Climate change” AGW has been a scam from the start.
Rory: Obviously I agree.
CLIMATE CHANGE, COVID-19, AND THE GREAT RESET
A Climate, Energy and Covid Primer for Politicians and Media
Published March 21, 2021, Update 1e published May 8, 2021
https://thsresearch.files.wordpress.com/2021/05/climate-change-covid-19-and-the-great-reset-update-1e-readonly.docx
THE CATASTROPHIC ANTHROPOGENIC GLOBAL WARMING (CAGW) AND THE HUMANMADE CLIMATE CHANGE CRISES ARE PROVED FALSE January 10, 2020
https://thsresearch.files.wordpress.com/2020/01/the-catastrophic-anthropogenic-global-warming-cagw-and-the-humanmade-climate-change-crises-are-proved-false.pdf
Thanks, you can always be counted on for excellent links. It seems to be lost on so many Leftist leaning “greens” that never before in human history have there been so many becoming insanely wealthy so quickly having done so little for humanity.
The shortage of North Sea wind is not rare, look at gridwatch to see that it has been underperforming for the last six months.
It is difficult to see the length of these wind lulls from the Gridwatch graphs as you can’t extend them after 24 hours to see effectively the length of each lull on subsequent graphs.
It has been obvious now for several months during this year, 2021 that these regular lulls (near zero wind blowing) can cause the contribution from the UK’s windmills to be as low as 1 or 2GW ( compared with the 30 – 40GW of electricity demand) for long periods in excess of 24 hours at regular intervals. Where will this replacement power come from in the future?
FYI, the data for each month of 2020 is summarised on:-
https://our-energy-future.com/ElectricitySupplyDemandExtendedLull
Some months are worse than others but the length of these lulls in UK wind are too long to ever be balanced out by any realistically sized battery system and would require massive H2 storage if this was used to replace the energy lost by these lulls i.e. even more windmills dedicated solely to H2 generation and requiring yet more subsidy and even higher utility bills!!!
Not the goal, but the inevitable result. The figure, if it appears, shows the effect of adding wind power on domestic electricity bills for European countries. [Caveats apply.]
Lowest UK wind for this time of year since 1961… so, not usual…
As often happens, you’re factually correct.
Of course, if you depend on wind power, and there’s no wind, and therefore no wind power, energy will become very expensive. Exactly how expensive it gets depends on the elasticity of demand for electricity.
The moral of the story is that you should not depend on wind power.
Sadly, my dear Griff, having apparently missed the point of the story, you’re not even wrong.
Renewable energy is like alcoholism. Until you’re down and out and hit rock bottom you’re not going to admit you’re an alcoholic or ‘addicted’ to renewable energy. Something like that. We keep seeing renewable energy failures. It’s like seeing the failures of an alcoholic. A few failures won’t do it. What’s needed is a complete disastrous crash.
griff: Why “Lowest UK wind for this time of year since 1961… so, not usual…” ” ???
In a for you normal day, you would say “unprecedented” instead of “not unusual”…
Perhaps you have not paid much attention to this incoherence, so I shall apply one “adjustment” as is often made by “climate scientists” when they don’t like the observed data: what you wished to say is:
“Lowest UK wind for this time of year since 1961… so, unprecedented!” ”
So, after the restablishment of the “truth” of your thought with this necessary correction, we must conclude that… climate change will compromise liminary one of the expensive panaceas claimed to prevent it!
Right, griff?
but not ‘unprecedented’.
So it will inevitably happen again. and again. and again . . .
Most warmistas would call something which has not happened since 1961 “unpredecented!”
Unfortunately griff, you completely fail to understand that the margins matter.
Unless you advocate not having electricity for periods (difficult to understand when watermelons wat everything electrified), then you have to accept the huge expense of covering the inevitable periods when intermittent generators cannot provide supply.
That intermittency is not a bug, its a feature of RE.
“That intermittency is not a bug, its a feature of RE.”
Yes. And it’s going to be a very expensive feature if nations continue down this path, because the only way to keep their nation up and running is to have sufficient fossil fuel powerplants available to fill in for when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine. So, they double the cost of their electrical infrastructure if they use RE, and pass the costs on to the consumers.
All this to control CO2, which doesn’t need controlling. But delusional people do delusional things. Unfortunately, for us, those delusional people seem to be in charge in too many places.
If only there was a reliable method of power generation which doesn’t depend on favourable weather…
A hamster wheel?
Do you suppose we could train some virtue signalling environmentalists and AGW true believers to the task? It could come under Community Outreach or community organizer.
That is actually a clever idea. How hard would it be to rig up large walkers to a generator and encourage the protesters to get out walk on the things? It could be promoted like the Cancer Walks where people walk around a field all night to draw attention to cancer but instead of just wasted effort by all participants they would be generating electricity.
…encourage the protesters to get out walk on the things
How about force the protesters…?
Oh, dear, my poor arthritic feet! Good thing I am not a protester!
How about a choice? Go to jail or walk on the treadmill to generate electricity?
That would be a good job for AOC’s 1.5 million Climate Change Brownshirts.
At a very generous 100W each, this would total 0.15GW.
So when the commie lunatics like griff get their way a major drop in wind happens and Europe can’t make up the shortfall and people die from the cold do we charge you and your ilk with manslaughter ? I think the answer is yes
The problem is the huge number of lawyers now. They have multiplied during the last fifty or so years and “worked” their way up the greasy pole. They are now in positions where they can make the laws and set the punishments.
Well the world largest grid battery just had a little overheat event in Cali as well and has spooked the market. Not a stellar week for unreliables 🙂
Here is the link about it:
https://www.eenews.net/articles/major-calif-battery-outage-highlights-energy-storage-risks/
Yeah, but wasn’t electricity supposed to be cheaper with renewables?
What, no claim that something unusual had to have been caused by CO2?
PS: Weren’t you the one who has been claiming that wind is perfectly predictable 24 hours in advance? If so, why weren’t the coal and gas plants ramped up ahead of time to compensate for this drop in wind that “everybody” knew was coming?
“Lowest UK wind for this time of year since 1961… so, not usual…”
Griff says to himself while whistling past the graveyard.
It’s not entirely relevant if it is the lowest wind speed since 1961, or even 1861. What’s important is the area covered and the cut in wind speed for the wind turbines. For most turbines the cut in wind speed is 3m/s which is 10.8kph or 6.71mph. This needs to be a steady wind to be any use. Optimum is around 12m/s or 43kph, wind speeds of less than 20kph are not really useful to supply the European grid.
So the question for you, Griff, is how frequently are there prolonged periods of windspeeds lower than 20kph (12.5mph)? My suggestions is more frequently than you’d care to admit.
This morning at 07:00 GMT Gas and Nuclear were supplying 80% of UK electricity.
Certainly not unpredicted.
If the policy makers had listened to us sceptics this would be another blunder avoided.
Clean, renewable, progressive green[backs], and lowered expectations.
Isn’t it strange that e Europe is suffering from the same higher energy prizes Obama promised for the USA years ago,
and that Joe Biden does everything to keep them rising,
and that the low oil prizes skyrocketed that moment ,when some billionaires made biden president the climate science way(=after data adjustment).
As if the USA & EUssr are run by the same people and the only reason EU exists is to force countries into submission.
And it’s not winter yet. Going to get worse. Hard to feel bad about self inflicted wounds.
Rud, Another cold winter is forecast for Texas, probably other areas as well. This nonsensical dependence upon wind may cost lives – again. Expect quickly rising natural gas and electricity prices. Total storage is way down and exports are up. Natural gas is ~$5 in Texas, $18 in Asia and Europe, or higher. As usual, the poor will suffer the most.
Andy, another indication. I heat my Chicagoland townhome with natural gas. Usually NICOR offers in August a nat gas lock in rate for the winter. This year they did not. A price Ouch is coming.
You got that right!
Expect quickly rising natural gas and electricity prices.
Expect natural gas to be banned some time in the future. It’s already happening in California. You can read about that here
WeatherBell’s preliminary winter NA forecast. Pretty early, but they’re usually real close.
https://www.weatherbell.com/prelim-2021-22-winter-outlook
Rud-
“Hard to feel bad about self inflicted wounds.” Well maybe. But from what I have read here at WUWT with comments from the UK, the voters there really didn’t have much of a choice. Or rather, the choice they thought they were making with Boris Johnson turned out not to so.
So do have some sympathy for the little old lady who voted for Boris, but now must choose between food and heat.
I may have it all wrong, but that’s the impression I get from UK commenters.
…the choice they thought they were making with Boris Johnson turned out not to so.
Yes, damned right! We should have realised that BJ is driven entirely by his gonads, as shown by his history (7 kids by several wives and mistresses). When his latest is deep green…
You are kidding?
Here it’ been freezing cold for the best part of a month, and thanks to “accurate” weather forecasting, based no doubt on warmistas, we have no chance of (communal) heating until next month.
This morning it was 8C with a freezing wind.
Idem yesterday.
In Ural already it’s frosty at night.
We have had the electric heater on and off for 3 weeks, only saved by the odd day of weak sunshine which luckily (thanks to equinox being only a week away), has kept us warm in daytimes, because of the 12hrs of daylight.
Even it this does not presage a brutal winter, you are certainly having a brutal autumn! It has been cool all summer in northern Portugal, only warming up a bit in the past few weeks but lots of thunderstorms too.
I guess it was an off day for Griff and the troll network. Those don’t count, don’t ya know.
Prices don’t lie, so Griff can’t troll.
LOL!!! Post of the day!
Coal is King, Gas is the Queen, people had best start figuring this out.
Finally we got a hockeystick that is real.
It is not about climate but it was caused by climate (change),as climate change was used as justification to increase energy prizes and it is man made,as those prizes went up by deliberate manipulation in favor of unreliab…renewable energy.
We have always had a real hockey stick
It’s human population under the influence of cheap abundant energy.
And so you can imagine what happens to that population with expensive scarce energy.
The plan
That so called hockey stick started well over 100 years before man started using fossil fuels.
Mr Nut Nut PM’s insanity is showing.
A perfect storm could form with further cooling in the north Atlantic, continued shortage in NG markets for another year out, full speed ahead on wind power projects, closure of coal plants, and speedy rollout of EVs. I would suggest rental units in Miami or the desert Southwest of the U.S. along with the regular snowbirds if you can get a plane ticket.
Expectations for Europe:
“Schnee” is snow 😀
Come on down to Phoenix, Arizona! We had a relatively mild and for us, wet August and we are cruising into Autumn with spectacular beautiful weather.
I hate you!!!
Griff will be relieved that Arizona managed to survive the heatwave.
Griff got real exercised about a heatwave in Arizona, he thought was caused by CO2, earlier this year. He seemed to think it was the end of the world there. But, here you guys are, alive and thriving! So Griff can relax because Arizona is doing just fine.
The Griff Effect not only included drought-busting monsoon rains and a greener desert than most old timers can remember, it also brought lots of bugs. So more bugs means lunchtime for the greens.
It’s not all happy times though with Biden using the climate spending clarion call to justify passage of the Bernie $3.5 T spending plan with borrowed money. Hey buddy, can you spare a Bolivar?
“The Griff Effect”
I assume this is similar to the “Gore Effect”? 🙂
Just a small point, the wind is normally dominant from the west the north Sea is east of uk , are there more wind turbines in the east than the west , one would not think so ,but coal and gas operations had to increase because of a lack of wind in the east!
Edit, theres more off shore wind farms in the east, that does not bode well for the land based ones.
North sea is shallow. West of UK the Atalantic Ocean is too deep to plat windmills in
Cardigan Bay, Irish sea
https://www.offshorewind.biz/2021/09/01/welsh-offshore-wind-project-powers-ahead/
Looks like it’s going to be the UK vs all of east Asia in the LNG marketplace.
Good luck with that…
Buyers Are So Hungry for LNG, Tankers Are Lining Up Off Qatar – Bloomberg
Hmmm…. Nord Stream 2 pipe from Russia just completed – one might sensibly expect that to play into driving prices down.
So… what’s going on? – is it high demand+low supply or are we seeing manipulation and speculation in the UK? – it’s happened before as it doesn’t take much to nudge the market price higher… Yes British Gas, I’m talking about you.
Saw claims earlier that EU are messing with gas buys from Russia – refusing to allow contracts unless Moscow makes deals with Kiev…
Putin is aiming to cut gas flow through overland pipelines in Ukraine and Poland and send more through Nordstream leaving net gain of about zero. Better start blowing hard on the windmills.
That nice chap Poisoner Putin is well aware that Western Europe needs to boost gas storage ahead of winter.
But, since the Nordstream 2 pipeline, it appears that there is no increase in gas being sent to Europe; so no replenishment of storage; so very tight winter – even if the wind blows very well; so Russia can either
And Boris is birthing another Boris-let, while chuntering about ‘The Saudi Arabia of Wind’ – oblivious to the green disaster he is permitting.
or encouraging.
I’ve bought candles – inside the M25.
Auto
Nord Stream 2 won’t flow “until the end of the year”.
Nordstream2 might be “completed” in the mass media, but Merckel is being shown the door, so don’t count on NS2 for Germany until the winter is over.
I predict coal will make a comeback, and Germany will get hit with heavy surcharges for energy, while they attempt to make up the shortfall elsewhere.
Btw Belarussia is meanwhile being taken over by Putin’s little green men*, and Luki, the Tarakan is selling his country out.
Yet another unobserved coup taking place in the energy subsphere, while Bojo and Biden are asleep at the wheel.
One of the problems in the UK is that companies have recently had to pay their Renewable Energy Obligations and many of the smaller providers can’t cope with both rising prices and making these payments. So far I believe 7 companies have gone bust.
Something that happens every few months is rare?
I’m sure that the griffendope will be along shortly to explain that this is a once in a billion year event and anyway once the UK spends £300 trillion on batteries it won’t be a problem and anyway it’s all totally predictable days in advance and look! Squirrel!!
Exactly. Its a cover up, the offshore wind farms are in the east ,can’t cast doubt over millions of £s investment.
Edit
Its no coincidence that the Welsh are considering offshore wind farms
No kidding, who doesn’t love a subsidy.
Not true that ‘the offshore windfarms are in the east’ – there are about a dozen offshore wind farms here in the Irish Sea/Liverpool Bay/Morecambe Bay/North Wales areas.
Sorry if you think I implied there are only wind farms in the east, I would of stated so if I meant so.
Big deal! About a dozen? We’ve got about three times that many just visible from here on the Essex coast, and there are many more to the North.
If all the UK politicians had incomes at the level of lower earners they would be horrified at their energy bills and certainly not promote expensive green renewable solutions.
The renewable scam always hits the poorest the hardest as they have to pay the biggest proportion of their income for light and heat.
The prices would be high because the random energy generators were at low output. Hence it is unlikely they made much during the peak price period.
UK will need to do the same as Australia and subsidise dispatchable capacity to ensure the BEVs can be charged.
Can you imagine the utter disgust the woke BEV owners will have when they go to drive off to work in the morning and their battery has not been charged!
That morning cannot come soon enough. Hopefully it’ll be the morning these pious virtue signalling look at me I’m saving the world idiots finally wake up, and yet somehow I think it’ll take more than that.
Don’t worry, RE alarmists will blame the lack of wind and the lack of sun on climate change even though all the have witnessed in their lives is just variable weather
Either that or they will blame the evil power companies who care more about profit than the do about the lives of their customers, and the only solution will be to nationalize the power companies, that way everything can be perfect.
…the answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind; the answer is blowin’ in the wind
I think the Northeast US is in for a big shock this winter as well. All that NG just the the west of there and no pipelines to get it to their homes. The irony is global warming is going to freeze them to death.
RB
Algonquin Citygate winter strip pricing (New England gas supply) has been ~$14/mmbtu, about 4 times higher than normal.
While much higher electricity prices are already a certainty, an acute shortfall of overall supply for fuel to the power plants is a high probability as the gas pipelines are dedicated to heating purposes first.
The current nosebleed European electricity prices will be seen in New England throughout the winter … accompanied by sporadic blackouts if severe cold snaps arise.
Elections have consequences.
Or:
What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate. Some men you just can’t reach. So you get what we had here last week, which is the way he wants it; well, he gets it. I don’t like it any more than you men.
A small wager !Certain western countries will postpone national elections due to the ongoing COVID and CLIMATE EMERGENCY!
I think the Covid emergency is going to be shortlived from here, as therapeutics are being tested now that are claimed to be able to stock the Wuhan virus and its variations in their tracks. They are supposed to be avalable around the end of the year, although it will be longer before they are widely available.
Or, people could use therapeutics already available like Ivermectin.
I hear the Biden administration is giving Ivermectin to immigrants coming into the United States, although I don’t know if it is aimed at the Wuhan virus or possibly they are just using it as a dewormer. People have worms sometimes, too, you know.
I also hear Australia is placing more restrictions on using ivermectin. There are a lot of clueless people in government nowadays. Which makes them a health risk to the rest of us.
Anyway:
https://www.futuremedicine.com/doi/full/10.2217/fvl-2020-0342
https://www.wnd.com/2021/08/indian-bar-association-sues-scientist-ivermectin/
https://www.thedesertreview.com/opinion/columnists/indias-ivermectin-blackout/article_e3db8f46-f942-11eb-9eea-77d5e2519364.html
Wind energy potential from the North Atlantic based on short-term observations from the late 1990s may be optimistic as this paper suggests.
Annual average wind speeds in the German Bight have been increasing since 1970 and could be naturally cyclical similar to the AMO.
Low and no wind periods could become more frequent or longer in future.
The alarmists are always claiming that the poles will warm more than the rest of the planet.
Weather is driven by the temperature difference between the equator and the poles.
If the poles warm, this difference decreases. The end result will be less wind for the bird choppers to capture.
wind drought is not rare. In 2017 UK experienced 7 consecutive windless months. 2 months in 2020 and for most of 2021 so far only on rare days have wind turbines got close to boiler plate capacity. Ironically only on those days when storms which turbines are supposed to stop happened.
This what happens.
Corruption and poverty, enslavement.
The decaying into it’s small world after all.
World would be a lot better with a country or two which had some basic freedoms.
Calm weather in the North Sea off the coast of Scotland last week. Source
More than a decade ago, V. Putin expressed his puzzlement over European energy policies, posing the question,
Yep they cut all the trees down years ago … dam climate and eco vandals.
“Thermal coal, long shunned for its carbon emissions, has emerged from a long price slump as utilities are forced to turn on backup power sources.”
Coal-fired, steam turbine electric generating plants are not just “turned on.” Years ago when I was in the U.S. Navy, almost all Navy ships were steam turbine powered. It took 4 hours to go from “cold iron” (boilers not operating) to “ready for sea.” And while the turbines were not operating they had to be “jacked over” (shaft manually turned) several times a day to keep the shaft from warping.
You can’t just walk away and leave a steam turbine generating plant to sit. More than likely these plants were at “spinning reserve” or close to it.
The bigger the plant, the longer it takes due to thermal mass. IIRC, it took nearly a day to get a “cold” 1300 MW coal plant to full load (using an auxiliary boiler to get it started). Of course, the quickest power addition is from small, simple gas-turbine (essentially jet-engines) generators.
Quite likely to be a very expensive winter for them:
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/energy-crunch-deepens-u-warns-082628076.html
Is a blackout during COP26 too much to hope for?
No. Let me add another hope – candles. Lots of candles. Whale oil candles.
No polar bear and walrus candles .. the whale blubber will be served as hors d’oeuvres 🙂
The problems will only get worse in Europe. At some point the great unwashed masses will scream in unison “To hell with saving the planet, I can no longer pay my bills- Let somebody else save the planet”.
The thing is, none of this “climate change” crap was ever meant to save the planet from bad weather. It was intended to line the pockets of a few and redistribute wealth to the developing nations … all preparing for a one world government.
The problem is the redistribution of wealth to developing nations got axed last COP and so that just leaves a nonsensical mess and some fraudsters.
I do wish there was a sarcasm font, but alas … not yet. There was never any intention of actually redistributing any wealth to anyone but the bureaucrats the UN sets up in the dozens of new agency offices in the “in developing countries” … along with local politicians. The bulk of the funding goes into UN general revenue. They already act as a quasi world government.
“Some fraudsters” is damned right. Of the $billions pumped into AIDS “research and aid” , who do you think got the lions share?
This is looking more and more like “ENRON2” by the day.
The gas market could get very tight in the US this winter with an early cold winter. Gas storage currently sits about 7% below the 5 year average and hurricane Ida has left sizable amounts of GOM gas production offline which could pressure injection rates the next few weeks.
but wind does not produce useable power.
the rise is mainly due to gas price increase. Wind energy has one of those magic properties that increases gas prices and causes power shortages when any power they produce is useless. Weird stuff is energy from WECs
Things have to go from bad to worse to diabolical before people [politicians] wake up and act.
I would say that Britain is not yet at diabolical point and could take possibly 3 years to get there.
Not so sure about Germany.
France is laughing as it has aging backup nuclear power but Macron still could do something clever like shut them down and rely on Spanish wind power.
Will the chickens come home to roost this year?
No.
But electricity prices will continue to rise and businesses other than hospitality will start to fold.
Once a really hot summer [unlikely this year] or really cold winter hits, possible at end of this year the system will creak.
Winter 2022 or 2023 will be the time it all implodes.
Not to worry, despair then recovery is always the way.
Remember Russia was bankrupt what 22 years ago.
Agreed . We have been saying this here for a while….it’s going to take an existential crisis for the hoi polloi to wake up. We aren’t there yet – but getting close…..
Once the politicians start to feel the heat (!), they too may wake up……
Don’t rely on it. More likely they’ll take everyone else down with them.
Hey it’s the guy who told us to drink bleach
The chart measure electricity prices, not gas prices.
When wind drops, back up reserves have to be brought on line. This is expensive in that the backups have to make enough money to not only pay for the gas they are using while serving as backups, but also recover all the costs they incurred while waiting to be used as backups.
It’s really not hard to understand for anyone who isn’t consumed by an ideology that thinks wind and solar are inexpensive.
“But…but…the wind is ALWAYS blowing somewhere…”
“The lack of wind is proof of climate change!”
“We just need to install batteries…”
Did I miss any of the asinine comments from the AGW Cult?
Wind and solar are cheap sources of power.
One of the goals of human progress was to free man from the vagaries of nature so that we could have better possession of lives.
The Left hates that and now we find ourselves living in fear of the simple vagaries of the weather once again.
So, we can now add “monetary inflation/increasing prices” to the litany of bad things caused by “climate change”.
Yawn!
“due to a rare lack of North Sea wind”
It’s not that rare, we have had 4 to 8 day long periods in February, April, and July, where UK wind power was generating between just 0.5% and 2% of national grid demand.
The irony is that all this fuss about CO2 is a huge mistake.
The only greenhouse gas that has a significant effect on climate is water vapor. Global WV trend has been increasing about 1.49% per decade which is about twice as fast as possible from just temperature increase of the liquid water (net effect of all forcings and feedbacks). https://watervaporandwarming.blogspot.com
It is not wise to depend on the weather for electricity.
The road to serfdom is paved with Climate Scam intentions.
How’s it going with the ‘firming’ in Californy?
Green Energy: The world’s biggest battery has overheated, and Strike moves on green hydrogen (msn.com)
Don’t fry the expensive things watermelons as they’re not going to get any cheaper by all accounts-
Pilbara Minerals just sold its lithium at auction for $US2,240/t. That’s a 550pc yoy increase (msn.com)
Well i,ll be…that graph looks like a hockey stick.
Maybe something to do with this :
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/09/09/ireland-freezes-power-exports-uk-energy-costs-rocket-tenfold/
Unbelievably good article – does anyone read the Telegraph anymore?
Very interesting, thanks for the link.
I thank you, too, for the link.
My question to Griff and others who favor windmills is: How will adding more windmills to the electrical grid help this problem? The fact is it won’t help this problem, adding more windmills will just exaserbate this problem. I think you have reached Peak Windmill, Griff.
You should read the link, Griff.
Behind paywall, my Telegraph free trial ran out.
The EU will still prefer to freeze in the dark than to accept gas from their racial enemies to the east, especially via the satanic Nord-Stream 2
https://www.rt.com/business/534873-gas-europe-historic-high/
No wonder DRAX Group is adding more wood pellet mill projects. They are betting on policy disaster with clear cut NA forests.
Electricity price effects go beyond the household level….
Aluminum prices soar in new construction headacheAluminum prices have surged 47% this yearAluminum prices soar in new construction headache | Fox Business
As the IEA pointed out in their report earlier this year (The Role of Critical Minerals in Clean Energy Transitions) EVs require SIX times more minerals than an ICE car. The latter use around 40kgs of copper and manganese whilst EVs use up to 250+ kgs depending on the battery type – copper,lithium, nickel, manganese cobalt, Rare Earths and graphite.
In today’s UK news, a fire at the Dover end of the cross-Channel connector has closed down imports of (nuclear-generated) electricity from France – not yet known how long this will last, but it’s regularly maxed out to keep UK lights on.
Also – and please do not read this if eating or drinking – it has been confirmed that Controllers will be able to switch off electric car recharge points if grid supplies are under pressure. Good luck to anyone relying on an all-electric car that can go nowhere because the battery’s still flat. But that is so-called ‘Smart’ energy in a nutshell – if you can control your domestic gadgets at a distance, so can almost anyone.
Simple choice:
Nordstream gas or freeze yer a55 !!
Bad to worse….
Europe’s energy crisis goes from bad to worse as Dutch and U.K. natural gas prices see double-digit gains (yahoo.com)
Fueling the crisis with more bad policy is going to make it much worse and make the blame game messaging that much harder………
Quartz logic (not)
Europe’s record power prices are a case for more renewables, not fewer (yahoo.com)
If you accept that climate change will have the impact forecast for future weather conditions, then why would you invest in wind turbines when the wind conditions that support the viability of that investment may change rendering the investment worthless?
Exactly. If climate change is real (for the sake of argument) it would seem to be leading to less wind. Oh, the irony!