From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
SEPTEMBER 17, 2021
By Paul Homewood
Alarm bells have been ringing in European and UK power markets this month, as electricity prices surge to record levels. Here day-ahead prices are triple those of a year ago, and European markets are seeing the same happening, a sign of serious instability in European grids.
The immediate trigger has been low wind speeds across much of Europe in the last few weeks, meaning reduced outputs of wind power. This has led to a shortage of power on the grid, and a consequent spiking of prices. This sort of thing occasionally happens in winter when demand is high, but is unheard of in summer months, indicating that something is going badly wrong.
But this problem is not a one-off. It is much more deep seated, and has been building up for years. UK wholesale electricity prices have doubled since this time last year. There are many factors, including rising demand for natural gas from Asian countries as they rebuild their economies. Normally this would incentivise higher production of gas, but this has been discouraged in Europe in recent years, and seemingly now also in the US.
But most of the problems in power markets have been self inflicted. Arguably the biggest factor this year has been the doubling of EU carbon prices, deliberately engineered by the EU to force fossil fuels out of the mix, in favour of renewable energy. UK carbon prices have followed suit.
As coal has the highest carbon footprint, this has encouraged the switch of generation from coal to dearer gas power, thus increasing demand for natural gas already in short supply. Both coal and gas generators have to pay this carbon price, forcing up their costs and consequently prices even further.
On top of that comes the £12bn a year cost of renewable subsidies, currently added to all of our electricity bills, equivalent to £440 per household.
Meanwhile huge tranches of reliable, dispatchable generation have been shut down both here and in Europe. In the UK, for instance, coal and oil generating capacity has dropped from 29 GW to just 6 GW in the last decade. To put this into perspective, UK demand peaks at around 50 GW, so we have lost half of this, leaving our reserves perilously low. The remaining 5 GW of coal power will also be gone in three years time.
The plan of successive governments was that new gas power plants would be built to take up the slack, but this has not happened. Gas power capacity is no higher today than it was in 2010. Because of the obscene subsidies paid to renewable generators, as well as rising carbon prices, new gas power plants are simply not economically viable. We still have 35 GW of gas capacity, the same as ten years ago, but much of this is old plant, due to close in the next decade, and there is little sign that it will be replaced.
The situation in Europe is similar, and will be exacerbated further by the forced closure of all nuclear power in Germany next year, where it still accounts for a tenth of electricity. France is also planning to phase out much of its nuclear power.
All this at a time when demand for electricity will soar because of the enforced switch to electric cars and heat pumps.
There are the inevitable calls to solve this problem with yet more intermittent renewable energy, but this can only make the power system more unstable still.
And how is Britain planning to cope with this crisis? Rely on interconnectors to import electricity from Europe!
The National Grid’s Future Energy Scenarios are based around up to 25 GW of interconnector capacity, which amounts to playing Russian Roulette with our energy security. As we have seen this month, when we are short of wind power, the rest of Northern Europe tends to be as well.
What guarantees are there then that France, say, will allow its power to be exported when they themselves are short of it. Indeed, last week Ireland shut down the Moyle interconnector to Britain, built to export surplus Irish wind power. The reason? They too were short of electricity!
To cap it all, a fire has just taken out the 2 GW interconnector between Britain and France, and it is expected to be out of action till next March.
Russian Roulette with a fully loaded pistol might be a better description!
Backup generator bought some years ago when I saw the way the UK was going. Will be dusting it off this weekend and testing it still works. The UK a few years ago ignored a recommendation to increase strategic Gas storage, at 8 days worth we have the lowest in Europe, the only good decision is good port infrastructure for LNG off load, as long as you pay the price.
There are indications that Gasprom/Putin are manipulating gas price market. I think, now Merkel is going, he is telling Germany be nice else. Thrre are elections going in Russiaand Putin is playing domestic card by being economically strong man in international affairs.
Panic in the UK mass media this morning, and this is not a joke: ‘British government is considering importing CO2 due to serious and unexpected shortages’.
Incredible but true !
Daily Telegraph:”On Friday night, the meat industry said the disruption of the supply of carbon dioxide had “plunged the industry into chaos”. It warned that carbon dioxide stocks would run out within two weeks.”
The BBC headline to an article about this is
Carbon dioxide ‘threatens food security’ says meat industry
To a casual glance this means that it is CO2 itself that is a threat, not the shortage. I have complained to the BBC about misleading and biased headlines but am expecting the usual We’re the BBC and we’re right sostop bothering us oick reply,
Full article here
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58600583
It’s the wrong kind of carbon dioxide.
The Greenies are dripping with irony at present-
Greenland prepares legislation to halt large rare-earth mine (msn.com)
They’ll have to get cracking with those unicorn farts real soon if they’re going to change the climate and stop the glaciers melting.
But,they need all the REEs they can get don’t they else they won’t be able to build all those planet saving EVs!
10 minutes checking oil levels and adding thinners to the old petrol to add back the lost volatiles needed for carburettors to work under cold start conditions and away it went, house backup sorted. Next job is to sort out the Tractor PTO driven 18KVA generator to power one of the local dairy house’s.
Sensitive, modern electronics devices need not apply to 1970’s generator technolgy made electricity.
Appears to be “work horse versus hobby horse.”
It’s not that they don’t work. I have an old school 3 hp Briggs-Straton powered 1500 VA generator that is just fine for motorized power tools like a table saw or chop saw or tile cutter or a simple water pump. But I’d never use it to power my home entertainment center or even a modern refrigerator with all its computer electronics that controls all its functions. Lots of stuff these days have electronics that would be wise to power by a modern inverter generators with a clean AC output. Plus they are tons quieter.
If the dairy John mentioned is modernized (2020 modern), it has computerized milk machine montoring systems and dairy cow RFID tracking of milk production. Running a modern computerized system on dirty power is asking for a malfunction and system damage.
It is a modern dairy installed 3 years ago, but I had already warned the Farmer he needs to ask the installer what was needed to condition the output to meet the equipment’s needs. If not there is another local farm with much older equipment the other side of the road, this was run off a genny 7 years ago when the local line came down and took 2 weeks to repair.
Not really Joel..
Almost all electronics these days run on switched mode power supplies.
The very front end of all those Power Supply Units (PSUs) is a full-wave rectifier and smoothing capacitor, obviously working at about 500 Volts so a small capacitor can store lots of energy
The resultant DC is chopped at maybe 50kHz with a Pulse Width Modulator and fed through a tiny, often ferrite, transformer. (Not a huge heavy, lossy and magnetically leaky lump of iron)
Output of same is rectified and smoothed and because of the high frequency, much smaller/cheaper components are required.
Output voltage control is done by modulating the width of the pulses and current limiting is simplicity itself.
Efficiency is vastly improved because a linear voltage regulator isn’t used.
All modern electronics all come with their own crystal controlled clocks so the input frequency is as irrelevant as input voltage.
Also, because the PSU is chopping, feeding back and regulating its output every 20 micro seconds, no amount of noise on the input will faze it
Small power tools effectively do the same and they are all effectively DC motors anyway.
But powering motors is the Achilles Heel for the solid-state PSUs
Any and all electric motors (and transformers) when they are first switched on present themselves to their supply as a Short Circuit and this where the electronic PSU, unless designed for the task of motor-starting, fail.
Because the instantaneous short-circuit (infinite amperage requirement) of the motor being connected will trip the PSU’s current limiter (what they use instead of a fuse) and so no-one will go anywhere
It is in fact the argument about ‘Spinning Reserve’ for the grid itself, but in reverse.
Huge rotating machines effectively do have ability to power a short-circuit, albeit briefly, and thus get electric motors up and running. Otherwise they burn out.
It is why solar panels and windmills coming through solid-state inverters don’t have Black Start capability.
A Black Start involves starting 100’s and 1,000’s of small electric motors in folk’s fridges, freezers and air-cons.
Also in fact all the small ‘electronics’ PSUs I described – that 500Volt smoothing capacitor requires initial charging although they all do have ‘current inrush limiters’ to steady things up a bit.
Even then, when there are 100’s of thousands of those left plugged-in/switched-on during a blackout, the current surge inside a Black Start can be mind boggling.
They are not events you want to repeat very often.
Yes Peta, when a grid blackout hits, it’s best to turn off the mains switch to your house, then all the motorized appliances, and wait for the power to be restored to your area before restarting your house mains and appliances one by one.
I learned the hard way.
Electrical engineering is complicated. Who knew?
This is very similar to what happens with a digital network “Black Start” as the low level device handshake which determines data rate and duplex is very poorly written which results in buggy implementations. Most large networks are completley hardwired using known MAC addresses and duplex requirements at each end of a link because the auto handshake is just not reliable.
All of those switch mode power supplies should not be exposed to dirty power, the PIV is not high enough
Yes you can use the “dirty” electricity, just “wash” it thru a sinewave UPS and your home entertainment center will be very happy. Both APC and CyberPower make some affordable sinewave UPS.
UPS’s are worth their weight in gold. They will save you a lot of headaches. I have them hooked up to my computers and my television.
Australia has enormous reserves of natural gas and shale oil gas, most of the largest shale deposits were locked away from exploitation as UN encouraged National Parks were created locking away minerals and energy, timber and even banning new dams.
UN Agenda 21 – Sustainability, now Agenda 30 (2030).
And now the net zero emissions politics that will greatly reduce the national prosperity of nations that accept this ridiculous objective.
Having told the French to go jump with their subs, the next step for a growing strength of OZ will be to repeat the suggestion to the UN. I think I see at least a glimmer of growing confidence with the Nuclear sub deal, taking back control of our country next.
I tested my generator last week. All OK and ready to run, with a large fuel supply.
Ordering some coal, to go with the full wood shed.
Don’t forget to look for oillevel.
Done but it stops anyway as it has a low oil level sensor.
Do you dare test the low oil sensor??
So what happens if this winter is really, really bad over there?
Aren’t you allowed to start a fire in the fireplace any more?
No..
You take off all your clothes, go outside and yell, “I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore”
Vladimir Putin has restricted gas flowing into Europe through Russian pipelines. There have been long periods of low wind disabling wind-turbines and destabilising the grid. The winter ahead threatens to be very cold. Soaring gas prices will threaten the poor with enormous costs and loss of heating in winter which will increase the death toll.
This is a perfect storm not brought by Nature, but inflicted on the population by a zealous and befuddled set of governments whose only solution offered is yet more intermittent ‘renewable’ energy which will only make the system even more unstable and add to the costs.
Who would have believed any of this would happen? Completely unforseeable. /sarc off. This is not just the result of having people with zero technical/scientific knowledge: it is the result of having either people who are idiots or traitors in charge. .
low wind has not destabilised the grid.
That’s because there are still enough fossil fuel plants left to pick up the slack.
Some mornings during the last week gas and nuclear have supplied 80% of demand before dawn, Wind and solar less than 1GW, Fortunately this is a mild September not a frigid January
Yes, but that reef is well in sight. Grid power is likely to founder this winter if there are any calm stretches in the middle of a deep freeze.
Since you appear to have superior knowledge, please explain what has destabilized the grid
Says Baghdad Bob.
So you are completely unaware about last winter’s debacle in Texas, when the entire grid shut down?
Would you like to discuss your lack of understanding about wind/solar stuff with my relatives down there? Being without heat in the UK is bad enough, but in Texas, where oil and gas are plentiful but the “people” chose wind/solar instead, COLD IS EFFING LETHAL, griff.
Oh, but I almost forgot: prolonged exposure to cold with ZERO relief results in hypothermia which can and usually does lead to dead organisms. Your understanding of that kind of thing is nonexistent.
That was certainly a time when even more non-functional (frozen up and /or snowed over) Wind and Solar would have contributed nothing except for the fact that having more wind and solar would have forced the retirement of even more reliable gas generation and Texas would have been up excrement tributary in a submersible vehicle with no means of motivation
As Homewood points out, its completely and obviously irrational. To at the same time increase demand by
while you also close down reliable generating capacity and replace it with intermittent wind and solar?
Anyone can see this is headed for disaster. It cannot possibly work. Either they won’t convert, or if they do the country will freeze and come to a standstill, probably both at once.
The BBC seems to be promoting that increased wind installations are the answer. What good would that do when the wind stops?
Too many people in government and the media with degrees in PPE, English or one form or another of media studies. In the grip of magical wishful thinking.
So much for Boris’s Saudi Arabia of wind. More like Saudi Arabia of hot air.
I’m pretty sure that Saudi Arabia has plenty of hot air.
Saudi Arabia also gets quite cold.
I can’t see the UK government doing anything sensible about this lack of power situation until we have 3 day plus national blackout.
Last year we had a minor glitch which tripped off part of london for less than an hour. It did expose a few problems such as new trains that were designed not to restart after a blackout!
But 2 days later the press rumblings died down as the news cycle moved on.
To my simple engineers mind it would be much simpler to fix an impaired system before a total breakdown rather that waiting for it to fail.
The UK is waiting for its Texas moment when the loss of life, property and money become so great that the numpties in charge feel obliged to make some changes.
Shame but true.
Dinorwig saved the grid.
Texas’s February power situation required a weeks-long extreme cold event across the entire state to expose its grid vulnerabilities due to too much emphasis on unreliable wind power.
But Europe and UK right now have moderate weather and normal September temps, and this is happening. A coming cold spike, probably just in time for the Glasgow COP, make for real entertainment for Putin.
Texas failed because of fails in its natural gas plant, nothing else
It failed because the pumps weren’t proofed against failure of the grid. Wiser countries use the gas on site to power the pumps
Texas failed because it was COLD. This prompted the need for more GAS for heating thereby reducing the amount of GAS available for generating electricity. Coupled with the state dependence on FROZEN
wind turbinesunreliable weather dependent sources created the situation. Insufficient Gas isn’t at fault it’s just another symptom of a failed renewable schemeSure. They has an abundant wind power 🙂
When griff gets his hands on a good lie, he never lets go.
Natural gas increased production 450% before it tripped. How much did your vaunted wind power ramp up during that event?
Wind ramped up -92%
Way wrong on that one, griff, whether you like it or not.
Caused by a fossil fuel plant tripping.
Grid scale storage helped with the recovery.
and you don’t note what an exceptionally rare event that is in the UK – despite our 42% annual renewable electricity total
Since you live there, how often did these types of events happen when the U.K. National grid was almost 100% Fossil / Nuclear / Hydro sourced?
Have they increased or decreased since 2000?
I know in Commiefornia we had about 118% over capacity potential back in the 80s when we were just experimenting with unreliables. This allowed for a generator or two to be down for any reason and still have back up for emergency situations. But that has changed greatly in the last 20 years with the overcapacity transitioning to outside sourced and a portion of reliables becoming renewables. Now the state incurrs semiregular curtailment orders and “Flex Days” when the grid nears capacity.
So, from my first hand experience with them, unreliables are far from capable of powering a modern state grid without reliable sources included and an overcapacity of an additional percentage at least equal to the amount of unreliable capacity in the mix
Crickets…
Three sentences, four separate lies, griffie poo is on a roll.
ROFL I love Griff the troll cherry pick … now give us the proper figure for any given year (not the best 3 months of the best year).
Yeah, well, when we get a power outage around here, it’s usually a small local thing and the power company comes out to check the source of the outage.
But when it’s a week long, as happened in July 2011, and it was the entire northern part of the state, it ain’t a fuel plant tripping, grfff. It’s caused by a massive storm. Took a week to get things up and running again. You try living without a working fridge for a week in July. It is SO much fun having to throw out the contents of the fridge!!!!
You are SO wrong on this kind of thing, you’re just looking ridiculous.
Steve, therein lies the problem.
The numpties in charge never own up to anything.
The 1st rule of fixing a problem is to acknowledge that there IS a problem.
That’s all you need. The rest is redundant.
Glad you mentioned Texas. I might have if you hadn’t. Worst episodes in my state were the blizzards (1967, 1979, 1999, 2011, and 2015), that shut down Chicago for up to a week, and the 1988 heat wave (triple digits) that resulted in heat-related deaths due to people being afraid to open windows or go outside.
Glad I don’t live there any more. Some landlords did not provide heat to their tenants during those episodes and paid the penalty for that.
I’m interested to get Griff’s take on this. He’s usually well informed with a great deal of well researched data. Unfortunately usually delivered in a drive by, he may well get paid by the number of replies to each one of these.
Just stop it.
I don’t spend much time here normally… it has been a lot more lately, being stuck in the house due to building work… I would like to spend more time on considered replies, but time presses.
It doesn’t help all my posts are held for hours awaiting moderation with sarcastic comments on them. I’m not convinced all of them are posted.
anyway, here we have a perfect storm…
end of summer maintenance period, coal comes online as it did last year, cable goes, massive hike in natural gas prices, lowest wind amount over summer in 60 years…
I’d say this was not the norm, not driven by the change to renewables… unlikely to be repeated.
lowest wind amount over summer in 60 years…
Did global warming cause that?
Of course.
Global warming causes EVERYTHING.
“unlikely to be repeated.”
Griff I’m sure someone will be telling bozo this, and bozo will be repeating it.
You can’t run a grid on unlikely, it probably won’t happen again.
Renewables will never replace fossil fuels, they just don’t have the capacity or the storage abilities to cover the times they don’t produce anything. Don’t you ever read anything but the Solyndra Times?
Clearly he is attaching wind turbines to his house 🙂
Good report by Paul. The insanity of speeding up when you see a street sign that says “dead end” is upon us. Also, the price of uranium yellowcake (U3O8) has gone from $30 per pound to $48 per pound (US Dollars) since August, 2021. The world energy reviews predict a 26% increase in nuclear energy production by around 2030. Not to worry, the CAGW crowd will fight against nuclear power, preferring that you freeze in the dark.
A great metaphor for what the Beeb advocates and our government is doing.
JF
Blame this debacle on the fellow travellers attached to the UN, IPCC and other related organisations using the climate change hoax and creatively accounted warming trend modelling (as compared to natural climate changes part of Earth Cycles and the Sun) who have been convinced governments to transition away from fossil fuels.
In Australia the crisis point is not far away, closing coal fired power stations before being even close to replacing the electricity generation supply with so called renewables and all of the back up and feeder transmission lines those installations involve. And now discussions are being held to subsidise the remaining coal fired power station businesses to continue generating past the fifty year accounting based operating life of each power station.
It is now said “go woke, go broke”, add to that vandalise the electricity grids and watch the implosion of economies.
Green should be replaced with very angry Red.
I have absolute confidence in the Parliamentary dictatorship to completely screw everything up
I can’t lie, you had me in the first half… 🤣
I’m waiting for those diktats to be inflicted upon us Norte Americanos within the next 2 years.
And to think, I just installed a brand new, high-efficiency gas furnace a year ago, because the old one was not working properly.
Power markets in crisis.
Surely governments could requisition all the EVs and use their batteries as grid life support?
[sarc]
Boris will solve the problem ( in his mind at least) by sending a minion out from Downing Street to Tottenham Court Road ( home to many shops selling electrical goods) where said minion will hand over a requisition demanding the supply of all available batteries. When these arrive in Downing Strret Boris will deliver them out around the streets of the capital to the throng of patiently waiting happy peasants ( naturally with a TV camera crew in tow)
According to the IEA there were only just over 2.1m EVs in the world at the start of 2020 and over 1m of these were in the US. So maybe enough to keep the Downing Streets of the world going but nothing else.
Oh the irony-
UK carbon dioxide shortage could force farmers to cull pigs (msn.com)
The UK Government should follow the lead of the Labour New Zealand Government’s net zero emissions plan and quarantine the farming sector from emissions reduction.
As people might know agriculture is a substantial part of the New Zealand economy.
There’s plenty of gas in both US Houses of Congress that we could ship over there.
we need multiple medium or large size modular reactors. take a simple, safe design; over engineer it, not over regulate it. understand safety cases properly. Build 10 2Gig nuclear stations capable of using reprocessed weapons grade. Do it all nationalised but with competitive tenders for subcontracted work with proper oversight (ie no MOD type people anywhere near it) and sell the electricity for 50% of this year’s average.
or stop daydreaming.
The problem is that unreliable energy can displace coal but cannot replace it.
https://www.riteon.org.au/netzero-casualties/#217
Statistics on the average penetration or the highest penetration on good days do not mean that ever-increasing penetration is sustainable.
The limiting factor is the near-zero output from wind and solar installations on windless nights.
This is analogous to the lowest point of a flood protection levee.
As long as prolonged periods with effectively zero solar and wind power persist, the march towards net zero is futile. 100% backup from conventional power will still be required, assuming that we want security of supply. That means we will be stuck with a hybrid power system for the foreseeable future until the problem of grid-scale storage is resolved.
That means we will be stuck with a hybrid power system for the foreseeable future until the problem of grid-scale storage is resolved.
That monumental problem occurs because at the same time as they’re attempting to electrify transport with lithium battery tech it’s also being used to stabilize the weather dependent grid. Given the resource scarcity it makes no sense to utilize light weight lithium batteries for fixed grid storage yet early adopters can clean up with it by providing FCAS. Short term gain for long term pain in that regard.
Meanwhile carmakers push the limits of lithium battery tech in order to max out battery range and minimize charging times (ie to ameliorate EV disadvantage over the ICE) and that’s wasting inordinate quantities of lithium batteries with recalls/replacements or seeing some go up in smoke. Ipso facto the climate changers’ monumental problem becomes utter fantasy if it wasn’t all along.
The problem of grid scale storage is insoluble
Yes. the fundamental problem is physics, its the same as EVs. Its trying to store huge amounts of energy as electricity.
For the grid, store them as coal, oil or gas for combustion in a separate stages, and you are relatively safe.
For transport, store them as gas or diesel with proper containment and precautions for later combustion in the engine chamber, and again, relatively safe.
Store it as charged batteries with huge current instantly available due to chemical reactions in the batteries themselves, and you have millions of bombs just waiting to go off.
Its intrinsically dangerous and there is nothing you can do about that.
grid-scale storage is an intractable problem.
First off, it is not a generation source. Once a battery system is depleted there is period that no matter what else occurs it has to be out of service for a period while recharging. Overlapping redundancy using many modules in Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) may seem like the answer to that recharge time-offline, until one stops to consider where the needed electricity for that constant recharging of cycling redundant batteries must come from.
Once all the maths, engineering, and hard physics of efficiencies and system losses are done, one comes to the inevitable conclusion you’re simply better off using the recharge-dedicated generation capability to power the grid directly rather than try to store and cycle the power through a BESS with all its losses and life-cycle replacement costs.
The problem is simply intractable if one’s goal is both reliable and emissions reducing grid scale electricity.
Joel,
It’s not an intractable problem.
I have, this very evening, indented for a selection of Himalayan mountains, to be placed in the Thames Estuary, thus permitting a very high altitude reservoir for hydro-electricity.
Boris will be on it by Monday morning, and it’ll be fixed before Christmas.
Just you see.
My PM can move mountains!!
Auto
PS – for those a little literal, this is /Sarc.
Strangely.
It’s Russian roulette, not with a revolver, but a magazine-fed semi-auto. The outcome is completely predictable … unless of course you’re a Green retard, indoctrinated not educated in critical thinking skills, like Griff.
Sadly there are too many Griff’s that have been allowed to be around decision makers, leading to the West’s looming economic suicide.
Leave Griffo alone, he is far too busy installing half a dozen powerful spotlights to shine on his solar panels so he can get stable electricity supply day or night, sunny or cloudy no matter.
Oh, that’s where he is. Not hiding from reality, as usual?
You posted this at 4.24 am my time… when I’m safely tucked up in bed, dreaming of wind turbines…
Griff, you’re not dreaming of wind turbines.
You’re having a nightmare.
That “whomp, whomp, whomp” noise is real, coming from those windmills on the nearest hill.
dream on! Reality is entirely different!
It’s all fun and games and huge head banger party until you run out of OPM and the hangover starts kicking your butt.
I just hope the blackouts happen ASAP. Once a power plant is demolished it’s very difficult to get it back especially if it’s coal fired.
The only way for policy to change is when it fails horribly as all 4 main political parties in the UK are firmly on the eco-loony bandwagon.
You’ll probably get what you wish for
I’m hoping for massive blackouts across the UK in early November – timed to coincide with the COP26 jamboree. With any luck Glasgow will be worst hit, while under the full gaze of the world’s press.
The French government is not serious with their de-carbonization policy, After pushing Australia to make more serious carbon dioxide emission reduction targets, they are now upset Australia has dumped the French contract for diesel driven submarines in favor of nuclear submarines.
Why do our pig-headed ministers not see what all other sensible people see which is that we are heading for a serious power problem this winter and beyond. They should stop pandering to the useless global warming eco idiots, and recognise that they are the cause of all these problems. They should accept that there has been no serious global warming problem for the past twenty years, and that now is the time for the government to face up to this fact and have the guts to do what is right for the country and not what is right to suit the activist eco loons. Come on Mr. Johnson, do what is right for the vast majority and have the courage to stand up to the idiotic minority that have brought so much pain to the country over recent years, and you will gain massive support from the silent majority across the country.
Only 1 problem his little head controls his big head or put another way princess nut nuts has Boris by the balls
G. B. National Grid status (templar.co.uk) Demand 30.03GW’s Wind 0.37GW’s turbines needed to meet demand 712,800 turbines or 1,342GW’s of turbine capacity. Boris Johnson said all the UK needed was an extra 40GW’s of offshore wind to power every home in the UK.
A government spokesman said “Our exposure to volatile global gas prices underscores the importance of our plan to build a strong home grown renewable energy sector to further reduce our reliance on fossil fuels”. Definition of insanity repeating the same mistakes and expecting a different result. It appears to be fact that these imbeciles still cannot comprehend that wind and solar are 100% weather dependent and therefore by definition cannot replace they reliability of fossil fuels and nuclear.
Price volatility has been caused by believing transition away from fossil fuels and nuclear is viable and by shutting down fossil fuels and nuclear trying to force a solution which in reality can never exist. Greens don’t care and can never be appeased and when millions die and will then reconstruct their narrative to imply that politicians did not move fast enough to resolve climate change. This is about a majority who cannot comprehend this imbecility and two minorities one of which is obsessed with virtual signalling failing to comprehend the tragedy of the situation compounded by an energy sector wishing to adorn itself with green fantasy to parade their virtue and a demented UN aided and abetted by Greenpeace FOE WWF and the media BBC specifically who cynically use natural disaster to spice up their news broadcasts.
This is now about reputation legacy and donations. Belief is the most dangerous word in the English language and the majority of those involved cannot comprehend the difference between belief and fact. Virtually all of the complaints I have made to the BBC result in the BBC saying everyone is entitled to their own opinion. We are beyond facts.
An extra 400GW of offshore will be useless if the wind doesn’t blow.
The UK is already on track to build an extra 30GW of offshore wind… which will be larger turbines, more widely distributed. That will make a difference in amount/availability
That’s cute, griff actually believes that a few hundred kilometers makes a big difference in how much wind is blowing.
Griff, I think you should look at some historical weather maps and satellite photos. These will show you that high pressure systems are often stalled over the UK/Ireland/North Sea/ Northern Europe. With low wind speeds across all these areas where ever it is actually parked
I’ve said before wind mills only start producing a trickle of electricity at 3m/s = 11kph = 7mph.
It doesn’t matter if there’s an extra 30GW or 30TW if the wind speed is less than a steady 8mph there’s no electricity, none, zilch, zippo, nix, nada, not even a trifle. It only starts getting worthwhile at 15mph.
You may well dream of wind mills, unfortunately no matter how many are in your dreams none will be producing any electricity either in your dreams or in reality
All it will really do is boost the cost of energy for everyone with no increase in availability of energy for public use. Eventually, all that will be left will be for everyone to return to wood stoves. Have fun with your CO2 deadly dreams while your windmills go whump-whump-whump until they fail and you have to find some way to recycle them.
With who’s wallet, yours ?
Oh, good!!! More dead migratory flocks!!! Wonderful!!!!
Please send pictures, willya????
Just re-watching “The Thick Of It”.
That really is a documentary on Brit politics isn’t it?
The renewable subsidy harvesters climate investors and the well funded NGOs such as Greenpeace will demand that more and more wind and solar is built despite their gaping shortfalls. It’s the co2 the co2 that has to be stopped.y cave is ready. Sure the Chinese will appreciate our sacrifice.
I told you so.
I’ve always thought people will go along with about anything until they are hungry and cold, then it get’s dicey. Everything is self inflicted here. Articles on WUWT have been posted for years saying this is coming and it will probably start this winter and get progressively worse for Europe over the years as the climate shifts colder.
Even the US isn’t immune to this madness with all it’s NG/Coal as both raw material supply and reliable fossil fuel energy plants are under attack. Fortunately for the US, a lot of it is south of 35N so for many the winters are milder and sunnier so a severe Arctic outbreak generally is less of an emergency, though as Texas demonstrated they can be an issue.
When you are 45 deg north and above solar is basically useless from mid Nov to February, so if you rely on wind turbines and the wind doesn’t blow (or blows too hard) you are screwed. Put in all the HVDC lines you want trying to move power from one side of the country to another but you will never get a solid, functioning grid.
This total madness hasn’t gotten to where I live and hopefully these issues will keep it from happening here.. but never underestimate stupidity.
yes, posted for years… I’ve been reading them here for over a decade AND STILL NO GRID FAILS.
(Sa failed because of weather, Texas failed because of natural gas and weather)
SA failed because of Weather … so much for the reliability of weather dependent energy sources then
The big lie technique.
Tell a lie enough times that the realists get tired of refuting it. Then declare victory because a lie has become the truth.
Please read my rebuttal to griff’s “gas failed” nonsense. He can’t seem to get anything right.
Again, you are wrong, griff, you sap.
Increased demand was the culprit, not a gas failure.. You know less than my cat does about Texas and don’t try to pretend otherwise.
Here you go: Plunging temperatures caused Texans to turn up their heaters, including many inefficient electric ones. Demand spiked to levels normally seen only on the hottest summer days, when millions of air conditioners run at full tilt.
The state has a generating capacity of about 67,000 megawatts in the winter compared with a peak capacity of about 86,000 megawatts in the summer. The gap between the winter and summer supply reflects power plants going offline for maintenance during months when demand typically is less intense and there’s not as much energy coming from wind and solar sources.
But planning for this winter didn’t imagine temperatures cold enough to freeze natural gas supply lines and stop wind turbines from spinning. By Wednesday, 46,000 megawatts of power were offline statewide — 28,000 from natural gas, coal and nuclear plants and 18,000 from wind and solar, according to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which operates the state’s power grid.
“Every one of our sources of power supply underperformed,” Daniel Cohan, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Rice University in Houston, tweeted. “Every one of them is vulnerable to extreme weather and climate events in different ways. None of them were adequately weatherized or prepared for a full realm of weather and conditions.” – article
Link: https://apnews.com/article/why-texas-power-grid-failed-2eaa659d2ac29ff87eb9220875f23b34
Natural gas did NOT fail. The demand by consumers caused the failure because of those plants going offline, NOT because gas line feeds failed.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. You don’t even try.
You lot are such old-fashioned gloom mongers.
Within the next 10-15 years the world will be transformed beyond recognition by Super Abundant Super Power. It’s going to happen so quickly you won’t know what hit you. For example in 1900 there was 1 car for 99 horses on the streets. Only 11 years later this was completely reversed with 1 horse per 99 cars.
By 2030, a 200-mile range EV will cost only $3,000. Your electricity to run it will have negligible cost, thanks to the expansion of wind and solar to four times the current capacity. Precision Fermentation will supply dairy and meat proteins, destroying the livestock industry which currently uses 40% of the land area. That land will become almost valueless, so it will be freed up for all kinds of uses. The rupture point for the dairy industry will come as soon as 2024.
It’s going to be absolutely fantastic. Super Abundant Super Power means that the American Dream lifestyle will cost only $250 per month. So get with it you miserable old gits and start supporting this fantastic future we are going to have.
Details on this video:
The Great Disruption -Rethinking Energy, Transportation, Food & Agriculture
The thermodynamic laws are not human constructs. Rather they are immutable constraints. The future is not easy to predict, but people like Mr. Seba, who do not have a good grasp of fundamental physical law, will bring pain and suffering if their false ideology is widely believed and acted upon.
The present disruptions in affordable energy and material supplies are examples of that. There are difficult technical challenges that must be overcome, but nevertheless, no matter hard hard one believes, the thermodynamic laws will not be violated.
You people need to do a lot better than posting videos of (rare) EV fires. Do you not thing the horse and cart industry said the same about car accidents in the early 1900’s ?
If you want to get anywhere you need to engage with Prof. Theba’s views because he is evidently being listened to. What’s thermodynamics got to do with it ?
I posted the video because it was short but still exhibits a key issue with today’s battery technologies.
People like you, would do well to solve such technology issues before willingly risking people’s lives on it. You would also do well to understand what effect earth’s tilted axis has on solar production and what effect the unreliability of wind has on the need for backup supply, and stop equating capacity with actual production.
That you have to ask what thermodynamics “got to do with it?” is simply pathetic and illustrates my point about ideological belief.
You’re missing the point and I don’t think you have actually watched the video. In the early 1900’s there must’ve been loads of problems with those primitive cars. By modern standards they were terribly unreliable and dangerous. Didn’t stop them taking over from horses within a decade or so. Your point about burning batteries is irrelevant, you are just an old horse and cart owner complaining how dangerous those newfangled cars are.
I was asking how thermodynamics is relevant to the ideas in the video. The subject is how existing markets are disrupted, and disrupted very quickly, when new technology takes over. Thermodynamics is not what it is about.
What’s thermodynamics got to do with it?
Erm – quite a lot , actually…….
I’m quite certain kzb has lots and lots of engineering education…not.
I look forward to your refutation of the Law of Conservation of Energy.
No idea what you might be ingesting but it can’t possibly be good for your health! Hopefully you will cease and desist before further damage is done.
I’m only repeating the arguments of an MIT Professor, who apparently has a track record of being right.
Professor of Social Sciences, no doubt.
Or women’s studies and food science.
I think you’re counting your chickens before they’re hatched.
AFTER you have produced food that people actually like to eat, and are willing to buy, and you have proved that you can grow and market and have an actual supply chain, THEN you may strut around like a cock about your super proteins.
AFTER you’ve demonstrated your super-abundant energy systems to the world, and are making tons of money because nations and utilities are lining up to buy them (in the face of greenies standing athwart your marketing attempts), THEN you make strut around and boast like a crowing cock.
Do you see how this works? Before you deliver magical unicorn farts, you need to capture a few unicorns.
No you’ve got it all wrong. Watch the video. There are no proofs and demonstrations needed. Market forces take over.
If you have wind/solar electricity at 1 cent/kWh, nothing else can compete with that price. Your argument is over at that point.
Most milk is used in other food products rather than being drunk directly, as milk. As soon as food manufacturers have the synthetic milk proteins at cheaper price than the real stuff, the food industry will use the cheaper synthetic proteins. At that point it’s game over for the dairy cow and the whole dairy industry.
Do you want to see the end of the dairy industry?
What we want is irrelevant. Did the horse and cart industry want cars to take over?
Who’s we?
The voices…
😱
Help
I say again. I am repeating what a respected futurologist tells us. None of this comes from me. Making snarky comments at me doesn’t help your case one iota. Look at the number of supportive comments he gets on Youtube.
I see your a follower , a disciple perhaps?
Futurologist? Cards or tea leaves?
“we” is the mouse in his pocket.
Dude, you’re even more deranged than griff.
It really is amazing how so many people are convinced that a press release about future plans, is the equivalent to saying it’s already happened.
Have you actually bothered to watch any of the video? If you had you would know it is not a press release.
We have another brainwashed fanatic in the room.
The delusion is strong with this one.
I’m trying to get you lot to engage with the material. At the moment you are horse and cart owners moaning about the newfangled, unreliable and dangerous motor car. They scare the horses so we can’t have them.
OH, please, there’s no need for you to let everyone know that you are so ignorant of 4-legged livestock!!
And don’t start with me, kid, because I grew up on the back of a horse. Anyone who has been around horses know they are less afraid of cars and trucks than they are of coyotes and idiots who don’t know how to handle the reins.
This reads like The Onion or The World Weekly News – “Super Abundant Super Power” – love it, Unicorn Farts for sure. Is this the modern version of the “Free Energy” silliness? I miss those guys…
Every paper ,science program from the 50s 60s promised Super Abundant Super Power, never happened, nuclear was not as cheap as they fought , it was not safe and the waste became a problem, a rather large unicorn fart.
Is that you, Jim Jones?
This is a completely Mann made crisis, but a Super Gore Effect is coming. They just have to work it out of their system the hard way I guess with such hardened green policy positions. Send in transport planes to fly out the last rational, skilled people.
UK demand now peaks at 48GW.
For most of the year it is around 35GW.
for the last 2 years coal has contributed just 2% of UK electricity.
I can’t remember when we last generated using oil…
In short closing coal/oil has nothing to do with this crisis, which is about a sudden and severe rise in natural gas prices.
I note we have had the lowest summer wind amount since 1961… in most years we’d have used far less gas.
I love your logic: We no longer have a reliable coal power, so any problem has nothing to do with getting rid of coal power.
Griff maybe the many new UK wind mills are slowing the wind …even more than expected.
Griff, this may have been the lowest since nineteen oatcake but what matters is that wind speed has to be greater than 7mph for wind turbines to be a source not a sink of power.
Because we’ve closed coal fired power generation and nature has closed wind, and green activists have stopped fracking we’re relying on Putin to be a nice person. There are a lot of dissidents widows who can tell you he’s not.
Surely Poisoner Putin is the nicest man to be President of Russia.
This week.
Auto.
Only 7% of our gas is from Russia and that’s a very recent development (2019, if I recall correctly). The point is coal has been a small player for some time, yet only now with gas prices rising do we have an issue.
That is the point. You did say it correctly. In 1961 no one would have fretted if the wind blew or not, or a even if it blew at 50% of monthly average for a month. Now the Russians are in charge.
God Griff, have you never heard of the supply/demand curve in economics? Of course when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun shine is low, more gas will be used. More gas demand, the more the supply will cost. That’s a fact of life, and it’s just like the fact that there are periods of time when the wind doesn’t blow and sun doesn’t shine. You have spent years ignoring these simple yet obvious facts.
Give up trying to find excuses to explain what is going on. What the “sceptics” have been continually telling you is coming true like it or not. Maybe a little soul searching about your FAITH in renewable power generation may be in order.
The constriction isn’t gas supply, but gas price….
You are displaying your lack of education! Have you ever seen a supply/demand curve and what happens to prices when supply doesn’t meet demand? I suggest you educate yourself about economics before spouting off about how wrong people are!
This is the key document on how National Grid proposes to keep UK electricity system operating…
download (nationalgrideso.com)
One can always find some nut with a download, it doesn’t prove the download is accurate anymore that griff is accurate. Most griffisms are just plain lies, some are just plain dumb. Must be a download for you to fix that problem, but you haven’t found it yet.
Karl, that is the detail of how they say they will operate and keep the grid running, that is the official detail from their grid engineers.
It is very technical and dense, nonetheless it is what you should be examining and criticising if you claim they can’t keep the lights on.
There is much in there about how during lockdown the share of renewables was very high and how they learned how to manage a grid with a high percentage of renewables on it… about maintaining frequency, synchronous generation, all sorts of key issues.
They learned what the requirements might be. However, the “wills, possible, new technology, new markets, etc.” phrases should clue in an astute reader that this is currently pie in the sky. Kind of like climate models pie in the sky projections that never seem to come true either.
But doesn’t the grid run on downloads?
I read it griff , it does seem full of referrals to” our new partners” with no substance” a lot of emphasis on frequency stabilisers, with no substance ,
Its not very reassuring.
It was written by Politicians, not Engineers.
“Loss of Mains protection management and updating the Security and Quality of Supply Standards (SQSS) to better reflect how we manage low inertia, are two ways we are doing this. We also need to find new sources of stability capability and we are doing this by improving our understanding of new technologies.”
Here is just one indicator of the “God I hope something shows up” attitude throughout the document. The document leads one to believe that “DC” will be the saving technology for renewable generation that is unreliable. Power is Power regardless of how it is delivered. If the source is unreliable, then the entire system is unreliable.
As far as I could find, there is a FAITH in being able to forecast 24 hours in advance. Somehow, unplanned lack of wind/solar within a day or night is never addressed. Also they never address the cost of reserve power. They will expect responses in the realm of single digit seconds. That means constant running backup of some kind. Their faith in market forces keeping the cost of this backup very low is misplaced. They wii in essence be paying for an always online backup whether in short and costly 24 hour contracts or longer term contracts. Why not just have a reliable coal, gas, or nuclear plant providing base power to begin with/
This is what happens when you put the loonies in charge of the asylum, the ultimate result of which will be disaster for humanity.
The “chickens” of politicized decision making are coming home to roost.
So many that it is darkening the skies.
An immense “Cluster Cluck”.
That with sound economic decision making would not be happening.
Carbon Dioxide stole their wind i bet ya.
Of course! CO2 is heavier than air, and therefore harder to move and create wind!
Just a quick BoE calculation for 17:00 BST on 18 Sep
Taking numbers from here (sorry Leo) I/we find that Wind is generating 2GW out of a possible (nameplate) 20GW
Demand is running at just shy 30GW
You work it out.
You fairly quickly realise that Boris is talking out of his backside BUT, that is what he was assured to be required = an extra 40GW
Who told him….
It is The Oldest Trick In The Book for anybody everybody tendering for UK Government contract.
i.e Come in with a low quote that ‘seems reasonable’ and then a few months later once Government is committed, start ramping up the size, cost and timescale of the project.
Costs and timescales simply ballon out of control and nobody ever seems, or is, capable of stopping it happen. Nobody. Never. Ever.
And that those pathetic little numpties fall for that same trick/scam it every time it has been played on them since virtually forever, you really do wonder.
How can ANYBODY be so completely out of their depth, incompetent, thick, gullible and naive?
edit to add.
From here:
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/maps-and-charts/surface-pressure/
We can all see if you get there fast enough, that All of Europe and Noth Africa is becalmed
Therre is no wind anywhere in Europe as I write
I have drafted my fair share of government tender responses. The most important skill is to identify areas that they have not considered or understood. Then you specifically exclude these from the quote.
When the quote is accepted, then you can start adding the costs to address those specific areas. It’s not honest work, but it’s satisfying to shaft a government that is constantly shafting you.
This is deadly and intentional whether the politicians knew it or not they have acted without justification, knowledge, forethought and compassion. An abandonment of their job.
You couldn’t ask for a better human caused crisis to teach some hard lessons, right Vlad?
According to the Daily Mail today (yes, I know!), the UK is going to run out of meat in about two weeks:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10005291/Meat-supplies-run-two-weeks-Christmas-dinner-threat-gas-suppliers-warn.html
Its probably the usual Mail hysteria, but that there is an issue is not in doubt.
The problem is that they use CO2 to stun animals before slaughter. Also for dry ice. Also for packaging in preservative wrapping. They get the CO2 from fertilizer plants, where it is a byproduct.
But wind has stopped all across Europe, and its overcast, so the wind and solar power generation has slowed to a crawl. And amazingly enough, who could have predicted it, the solar panels seem to stop generating every evening now, and are offline for hours at a time!
This means that its all down to natural gas (coal having been switched off to save the planet.
Consequently the price of gas has risen. So electricity prices are rising as well. Its all risen so much that the fertilizer plants are ceasing operation, which means no CO2…
This is a real wakeup call. It shows not only that the green agenda of running the country in anything like its present form on wind and solar is impossible. It shows the extent of the changes of just about every aspect of how we live work shop and travel that that agenda requires.
The UK Cabinet is said to be having emergency meetings with the energy industry. Lets hope that someone there explains to them the concept of intermittency.
The real science (and engineering) deniers are in the green movement. But there are encouraging signs that people in politics and the media are one by one slowly coming to their senses. The first serious indicator of this was the other day when in the preamble to CP26 and in the middle of their hysterical doom-laden coverage, the BBC finally noticed how much CO2 China is emitting and suggested maybe they needed to be asked to stop.
That was an astonishing reversal. Maybe acquaintance with intermittency will produce a similar change on the part of the UK Government. Lets hope so.
Running out of meat isn’t the end of the world as long as you know enough about nutrition to organize your diet properly. We can certainly live perfectly well as vegetarians (as vegans is much harder).
But the problem that will surface is that much of the green and vegan movement is in denial about the need to take B12 supplements if you are doing this.
There really is no choice. We, like other animals, including cows, make B12 in our gut. But unlike them we make it at a stage after where absorption of nutrients has ended.
So if you try to live on a vegan diet without taking B12 supplements, or worse still try to feed your children on such a diet, you will produce anemia.
If the UK really does start running out of meat, and if the greens really do manage to sell their vegan agenda, this denial will have really bad consequences for national health.
Almost as bad as the consequences of intermittency denial have been for the electricity supply….
The power market is only in crisis for the people paying.
This Green BS is destroying our country and culture.
The Brits bought into the renewable nonsense. Let them enjoy it.
Spain has the problem licked-
”In Spain, the government plans to put in place a windfall tax on power plant owners to create a €3bn fund which will be used to lower consumer bills.”
UK energy market crisis: what caused it and how does it affect my bills? (msn.com)
Can we have some of what Griff from Barcelona is having?
‘I don’t think we’ll survive the winter’: small energy suppliers call for help (msn.com)
Do you think leftys will ever work out they can control the price or quantity of something but never both together?