Reposted from NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
OCTOBER 24, 2021
By Paul Homewood
h/t Philip Bratby
The Committee on Climate Change have been caught cheating:
Modelling used to justify the “feasibility” of the net zero target assumed a dramatic fall in the number of days of calm weather, when many turbines stand still, according to new analysis.
Data obtained from the Climate Change Committee (CCC), the official advisory body, following a legal battle, shows that a series of assumptions underpinning its advice to ministers included a projection that in 2050 there would be just seven days on which wind turbines would produce less than 10 per cent of their potential electricity output. So far this year, there have already been 65 such days, and in 2016 there were as many as 78.
On Saturday night the disclosure prompted questions over the accuracy of the CCC’s claims in 2019 about the feasibility of meeting a target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050. Ministers rely heavily on the CCC’s advice and modelling, and last week its chief executive, Chris Stark heralded Boris Johnson’s new Net Zero Strategy as “largely mirroring the CCC advice”.
It comes as an analysis by the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) think tank warns that the “quality of the CCC’s advice is questionable”, particularly in relation to the 2050 target adopted by Theresa May in 2019.
“[The CCC] advised that this target was feasible but refused to disclose the calculations on which its costs figures were based, and it became clear that the scale of the challenge of net zero was not well understood when the target was passed into law,” states the report, which is published today. The IEA report also accuses the body of having expanded an initial remit as an independent advisory body delivering balanced advice, to becoming a “pressure group”.
Mr Stark used a newspaper interview on Friday to say that the Government should be urging people to “understand what they can do” about climate change, including “flying less, eating less meat”.
Back-up power could be required from more reliable sources
Craig Mackinlay, the leader of the Net Zero Scrutiny Group of Conservative MPs and a member of the public accounts committee, warned that if the committee had significantly overestimated the amount of power that turbines would generate, significantly more back-up power could be required from more reliable sources.
He said: “These predictions appear somewhat fanciful. The Climate Change Committee seem to be looking at the whole project through rose-tinted spectacles to try and minimalise the unpalatable costs of this whole enterprise.”
Analysis of CCC data obtained following a legal battle by the Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF), a climate sceptic think tank, found that the body’s assumptions as part of modelling included that the UK would experience just one day in 2050 on which wind turbines would operate at less than five per cent of the industry’s overall capacity. That compares with 20 days so far in 2021 – which has seen particularly low wind speeds – ten days in 2020, nine in 2019 and 21 in 2018.
Wind energy varies throughout the year
The CCC’s modelling, which drew on a study by Imperial College London, also included an assumption that, in 2050, there would be just seven days on which wind turbines produced less than 10 per cent of their overall capacity. That compares to 65 such days so far this year, 30 in 2020, 33 in 2019 and 56 in 2018, according to analysis by Net Zero Watch, a campaign of the GWPF.
A spokesman for the CCC declined to explain the disparity, saying: “Detailed assumptions on power generation were made in 2019 as part of an extensive body of modelling and analysis to inform our advice to government on net zero. We stand by these insights.
“This information, including the study undertaken by Imperial College London, is published in full on our website. We have no further comment to make.”
The CCC has previously said that the UK’s future energy supply should come from a “portfolio of technologies” including nuclear and hydrogen power, but insisted that the costs associated with the intermittent nature of wind “represent a small proportion of overall system costs.” Experts have also suggested that placing turbines in a wider variety of locations around the UK would increase the overall yield when the wind fails to blow in particular areas.
Victoria Hewson, a solicitor and the IEA’s head of regulatory affairs, said: “The scale and impact of the areas covered by the advice of the Climate Change Committee is vast… Far from being treated as an irreproachable source of truth, the CCC should be challenged and scrutinised more than any other regulator or advisory body.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/10/23/net-zero-target-relies-rise-windy-days/
Whether the CCC assumptions are realistic or not, the simple truth is that British weather is not the same year in year out. You only need one year, or for that matter one month, of low wind speeds, and the electricity grid is broken if you have not got back up in place.
It is highly irresponsible of the CCC to have not allowed for this in their planning – in other words planning for the worst case. As such they have grossly misled the government and Parliament.
I can only assume they have done so in the knowledge that their Net Zero Plan would have lost all credibility otherwise.
Well, maybe it will get more windy. If not those windmills will just sit there soaking up money.
Yep, the only purpose of wind & solar farms is to transfer wealth from the have- nots to the politically connected haves through the medium of corrupt government.
Now now now, the CCC told the truth…
There will only be seven days when Wind will produce just 10% of nameplate capacity
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday and
Sunday
🙂
Yes we forgot the definitions, Nick Stokes could not have done it better 🙂
Were you at that weekend meeting at Floors Castle, between Scotland’s then FM Alex Salmons & The Duke of Roxburgh, because it sounds exactly like what you described? After a sumptuous feasting for Salmond’s motley crew on various occasions, the Duke cleaned up in the Public Green Money Stakes, and a forest of Windmills suddenly appeared on the Scottish part of his family’s Ancient Seat which straddles both sides of the Border between England & Scotland in the United Kingdom. … so it was reported in the Press at the time. Still the Fraud continues…
Before the automobile a safe prediction would be the horse would be hitched to the buggy before going for the ride. And usually an invention was proven to be useful before mass production for sales.
Where electricity is concerned it is best to not rely on the weather or to predict too far into the future even if big money is at stake. And bribes.
It would be foolish to assume that the CCC did any calculations secure in the knowledge that “the dogf ate my homework” excuse would fob off the proles whiule they got on with their trecherous assasination of the UK economy. Shocking that treacherous governments LLOWED THE PROLIFERATION OF THIS UNSCIENTIFIC NONSENSE They should be put against a wall and shot. In the meantime to cheer you up foR the Glasgow gabfest -MAY IT DISSOLVE IN ACRIMONY here is a little cartoon
https://www.dropbox.com/s/f8epmwd9sc0vrl8/Glasgow%20greetings.pdf?dl=0
‘Put against a wall & shot’. Couldn’t agree more. An expensive, destructive & inefficient way to tackle this relatively unimportant problem. That’s what these creatures are producing. As for Glasgow, may it be a ‘wake-up’ call to the masses that they are being duped.
Well, as climate change ideology assumes we can change the weather at will, why not more wind?
Because the predictions are for greatest warming at the poles, reduced temperature gradients and thus less winds.
Until you need the opposite to happen 😉 Recently saw a local greenie state the current high chance of 2 consecutive La Nina’s was due to Climate change. Its the only theory where if the opposite to the prediction happens the theory is still confirmed.
Increased warming at the poles is just a lot of hot air
I find it interesting that they’re able to attain so much better accuracy the fewer measurements they take.
I too have heard this theory.
“The CCC’s modelling, which drew on a study by Imperial College London, also included an assumption that, in 2050, there would be just seven days on which wind turbines produced less than 10 per cent of their overall capacity. That compares to 65 such days so far this year, 30 in 2020, 33 in 2019 and 56 in 2018, according to analysis by Net Zero Watch, a campaign of the GWPF.”
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Close enough for government work. Don’t be surprised when you get a circus after you’ve hired a bunch of clowns.
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Mr Stark used a newspaper interview on Friday to say that the Government should be urging people to “understand what they can do” about climate change, including “flying less, eating less meat”.
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What’s up with this “eating less meat” thing? Cattle are way more efficient at converting vegetation to meat than all that processing that goes into making fake meat from what… lawn clippings and wood chips? I don’t know what goes into that fake meat and I hope never to find out.
If the whole world switched to eating veggie burgers starting tomorrow, I sincerely doubt that it would change climate by one iota.
Cows are carbon dioxide neutral.
Save a tree…eat a vegan
H. R.,
The Gretatards know that high quality amino acids, readily available in beef, are necessary for higher brain function! If they can demonize eating and producing meat they can make lots more people as stupid as the average eco-loon!
It’s kind of like how Communism solves wealth inequality by making everyone destitute! The high priests of Climastrology want all their followers equally stupid…and poor!
The followers. Not the leaders.
The leaders are already stupid, but they are rich because of it! Lies should result in severe sanctions, but fools give them money to make up more lies.
I suspect that if the whole world went completely net zero and lived like stone-age Africans starting tomorrow, this wouldn’t change climate by one iota.
But you wouldn’t have the gear to measure that
see ref. “soylent green”
Remember that “Lord” Deben who is in charge of that coterie known as the UKCCC, was actually a Former Minister in John Major’s outgoing “white flag to the EU” government. He was (and still is) John Gummer, the man who fed “BSE” burgers to his own children, to “prove” they were safe to eat. That’s the sort of “science” that he practised then, and is still doing today at the UKCCC. ….
Did I mention that he fawns over “Professor” John Krebs, as the ultimate fount of all climate knowledge…. and, err, well, Gummer is Emeritus Chair of “Globe International”, an alternative “Shadow World Government” which imposes regulations at a local level working with City Mayors, Head Teachers, and enforcing Climate legislation by that back-door route. …
Can’t get planning permission for some factory?, arterial roads blocked by rarely used cycle paths?, less car parking spaces?, mandated and apparently capricious rules? Globe International is to blame, and John Gummer knows where the “dead bodies” are buried, so the Tory Government of Boris can’t easily dismiss him.
Well it may be a sinecure for him, but it’s a torture and a fraud on the UK Taxpayers to have this man in control, carrying out these various plans ostensibly hatched by the hapless losers, Ed Miliband and his puppet-mistress “Baroness” Bryony Worthington, but actually directed by Globe International et al. How long can thus pretence persist?
“It is highly irresponsible of the CCC to have not allowed for this in their planning – in other words planning for the worst case.”
The went far beyond not planning for the worst case, they assumed the best case scenario. Even the known typical was ignored. As such, the entirety of the CCC recommendations should be ignored until they recalculate with all assumptions proven to be reasonable.
They based their “best case scenario” assumption on nothing whatsoever.
That’s called “making it up”. There was no scientific reason to be making this assumption.
With the greenies, the ends justify the means. If you have to manufacture data or ignore reality in order to produce a study that ultimately gets you what you want, then it’s okay to lie and cheat to do so.
Bogus Aristocrat, Life Baron John Gummer of Deben (head if UK CCC) is an utter shill for the UNIPCC and Globe International, supra-national bully boys. Oh how they worship their mentors, John Holdren & The Erlichs. Malthus himself would be proud of their “achievement” in reducing populations across the Globe, by restricting technology and fuels, and not only in the 3rd World.
It seems like they plan for the worst case effect from CO2 on temperature and the best case effect on the Sun and wind where neither has the least amount of legitimate support from the science, the data and logic. Since legitimate science has no place at the CCC, they can claim they are just doing their job as chartered, much like the IPCC is doing it’s chartered job to find science (legitimate or not) that supports the Marxist agenda of the UNFCCC.
Socialists start with the assumption that there plans are perfect, therefore there is no need to plan for a worst case.
This time, there will be no problems, they guarantee it.
Far, far beyond “best case”.
CCC knew it veered into a la-la-land of dreams, and fairy tales, and goblins, and dwarfs, and gnomes, and was hoping it’s glossy report would BE SWALLOWED WHOLESALE, by the gullible folks
Apparently it was.
If it’s enough to fool Boris, that’s all that matters. He’s easy to fool.
Don’t you remember: the data from such unreliable sources as weather stations, spectrographs, etc. are no good. Only the models provide useful data.
Who are these CCC people? We want names!
It’ll be John Selwyn Gummer and Tim Yeo at the back of this again.
The Conservative Party, of course.
Snouts in trough.
The CCC is a product of Labour’s insane Climate Change Act. Which was enacted with near-universal support of MPs; they are, with a few exceptions, equally dumb regardless of party.
Note that 10% is still worthless. If we need 100,000 MW shouod we build 1,000,000,000 MWof wind? Wind requires 30+ mph of wind to produce full power, which almost never happens, so this is not like a real generator.
We never see an actual design because it would be chokingly expensive and still not work. All hand waving.
David,
You missed some details in the fine print!
Instead of supplying batteries to power us through times of low or no wind, CCC has done their calculations based on every household having a unicorn…on a treadmill!
Not only does this easily pick the slack from wind producers, but the unicorn farts can be used to power CCGT plants as well! It’s right there in the Imperial College modeling; how could anyone doubt their veracity! Communists never lie!
David W: “We never see an actual design because it would be chokingly expensive and still not work. All hand waving.”
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B golly! You’ve hit on the solution, David. Put all of those hand wavers in front of the whirligigs and you’ll be guaranteed enough breeze for full output.
Let’s not let all that hand waving go to waste, eh?
What is the energy efficiency of food calories to hand waving?
Perhaps the theory is that CO2 and other greenhouse gases like methane have broken the wind. Once we stop expelling these gases, wind will not be broken and will blow more.
No. They lied. Again. More proof that without the lies and deceit, without corrupt practices, the climate change scam will collapse completely.
They “Broke Wind” alright
Climate Change will provide the wind – it is the gift that keeps on giving…CC will save the CCC….you will see.
But when we use windmills for power, we will reverse climate change and there will be no wind again. Oh, no!
From the article: “Far from being treated as an irreproachable source of truth, the CCC should be challenged and scrutinised more than any other regulator or advisory body.””
The same goes for the UN IPCC. They are not irreproachable sources of truth, either.
Details, details
The ratepayers can pick up the difference in forecast accuracy…later.
And yes, ‘later’ is the key word for advocacy predictions.
“but refused to disclose the calculations on which its costs figures were based”
Are loydo and griff on this committee, not to mention the other voices-in-the head scientists who come on here to bloviate? Jeux sans nombres.
You know who you are. Greta and the Queen of England are on to you and your bullshit.
I am often times amazed that there are others out there who think that climate skeptics are skeptical because we LIKE Coal and Natural Gas sources of power. Like we are in the pocket of BIG OIL or we have been duped by ‘misinformation’.
Rather it is that the ‘solutions’ are just stupid.
The way they justify the ‘stupid’ solutions is to say the world is going to end.
Enter skepticism. Will there be warming above natural warming due to an increased absorption of specific wavelengths of radiation because of CO2? Yes probably. Is it REALLY the control knob of the planet? Causing MASSIVE feedback loops? Maybe. But I can say maybe to any number of theories.
But when you attempt to diminish the several warm periods that are comparable to the current one over the last 10,000 years ( all of which saw significant human progress ) and say that today’s is incomparably warmer when switching from proxy data to fine tuned instrument data in order to note that TODAY we MAY be warmer BY TENTHS OF A DEGREE than those other periods causes a rational persons BS meter to flash. ‘THEY’ THEN attempt to sell me on WORLDWIDE NEED TO CONTROL essential energy production and massive subsidies for sporadic and questionable energy production all without knowing what the real consequences are for the ‘new’ form of energy production ( that the cure MAYBE worse than the problem ) – you have now managed to make me disagree GREATLY with your agenda. BECAUSE when all that you have is benefit without cost or cost without benefit my BS meter goes off AGAIN!
Not only that but you fail to make me understand the REAL problem with a warmer world with enhanced CO2 is a problem OTHER than saying it is. Science describes systems, it does not make VALUE JUDGMENTS. Value judgments are what WE ascribe to data when we decide how to deal with the systems that science describes.
Is there a good chance CO2 warms the world slightly. I would argue that it is PROBABLE. Is it very consequential? Probably not, but there is a chance.
However I am happy to discuss this with rational people and create INTELLIGENT mitigation methods just in case. BUT NOT the silly irrational choices being made by advocate policy shills with agendas.
I am a skeptic because I can think, it does not mean I am correct, it simply means that I want people to sit down and RATIONALLY describe why the course of action they are taking is correct and provide REASONABLE responses to my questions.
Not so sure about that “good chance”. Latest peer reviewed research from Loeb et al 2021.
“For this period, the observations show a trend in net downward radiation of 0.41 ± 0.22 W m−2 decade−1 that is the result of the sum of a 0.65 ± 0.17 W m−2 decade−1 trend in absorbed solar radiation (ASR) and a −0.24 ± 0.13 W m−2 decade−1 trend in downward radiation due to an increase in OLR”
This covers a period of most of the 21st century. It tells us solar energy (ASR) has been warming the planet. OLR radiation, which includes CO2 effects, has actually helped in cooling the planet.
Theoretically a ‘good chance’ that CO2 absorbs a narrow band of radiation and releases it as ‘heat’ MAY cause a – all things being equal – minor increase of temperature in the atmosphere. Also even when it is welcome news I treat any paper, even ones I hope are correct, with skepticism. Loeb MAY have it right, or he may be missing something ( I have not read it yet ). I hope he ( et al ) have managed to get it correct, but, the systems are complex and difficult to map/chart/etc.
Again REALLY skeptical about the overall effects of CO2. I am still skeptical because they will not answer in any thoughtful terms all the other issues at hand.
If CO2 was REALLY that scary, go to nukes, then fill in with solar etc for peek summer time periods, then decommission once you have generated enough energy to make sense ( it never will )IF other methods prove they can supply energy easily. This would have been the somewhat SANE earth friendly non oil/gas direction. Even this approach is fraught with issues.
But nope, we have to say wind and solar? They are even tearing down damns and hydro electric!!! WHY?
This whole thing is BACKWARDS.
Celebrate?
China Faces Cold Winter With Coal Shortages, Power Cuts (yahoo.com)
No. It’s the poor who suffer.
Why celebrate harm to the weak? Even if they’re Chinese.
In history, dictators are only toppled when enough of the “common people” are harmed by their actions. (It also has to be impossible for the dictator in question to blame external forces.)
This could still be a good thing for the slaves in Red China, in the long run. One could wish otherwise, but – unicorns do not exist.
It’s not all bad news for the common people. From the above link:
“China is heading into winter still blighted by power cuts and electricity rationing. That is forcing companies to cut back on operating hours and curtail shifts.
China’s growth is already forecast by the World Bank to slow to 5.4% in 2022, from 8.5% in 2021, a 2022 showing that would put it exactly in the middle of the pack in Asia. It’s a far cry from its previous world-leading rate.
The government is prioritizing the supply of residential power, which S&P says “should be secure,” but will force commercial and industrial consumers of electricity to ration power throughout the winter.”
Anything that cuts China back on it’s goal of becoming the 4th Reich is good news for the rest of the world.
The Chinese are lucky not to live in North Korea, where the local unelected Despot has mandated “his people” to …. Cut down on food, and not eat so much for the next FIVE years ! … Due to the “greening” of his own foreign bank accounts if suggest.
Does that count as Climate
Change,Emergency,Mitigation,Wierding, Curbing?(what are they calling it now anyway?)
Eventually the Green’s reliance on magical thinking is going to catch up with them big time. I have my pitch forks sharpened in anticipation of that fine day….
If the CCC collectively fart in the direction of the windmills would that increase wind?
No that’s called “Breaking Wind”
I was fortunate that, when I as still a peasant, I had a very big field at the end of my garden. It belonged me, it was my field. It faced south-west (the prevailing wind) and on a clear day I had a 30 mile view, to the south west and the Cumbrian Lake District in fact.
Very lovely but doesn’t ‘Pay the Rent‘ as the saying goes
This happy occurrence allowed me to indulge myself in not one, but two small wind turbines.
I used my electrical and electronic engineering education and experience to fix them up and to monitor them, or their output especially.
beforehand tho, I’d done some research on windspeed at my particular location and frankly, depite my west facing hillside location on the 300 foot contour, it wasn’t really ‘All That Good‘
And this is where I learned what the folks here will learn but don’t want to know.
Chris Stark I have shared a lecture theatre and I learned that he really really could could make a very good living simply out of being ‘annoying’
(He was absolutely fixated by Hydrogen on that occasion inside Leeds University)
And it is that, as I felt at the time installing them, My Windmills Will Work.
The naysayers have it all wrong – these are My Windmills and they are the greatest windmills that there ever was. They Will Work.
And do know what, they did work. They really did.
As weather-vanes and that was all.
Coming home from bits of retail therapy and driving down the farm lane, I’d see them whirring away and be absolutely sure of which direction the wind was coming from and roughly how strong it was
But time after time after time that the electricity they’d made in my absence was simply = A Joke
Diddly Squat Juice. Nil electrons. Vacant Volts. Krap Kilowatts. Piss Poor Power.
I got the lot.
I know from experience what windmills are about..
Sadly, Messrs Stark and all don’t have that experience, they won’t listen to the realists and just as I did, will finish up with little more than very expensive, high maintenance and stress-inducing garden ornaments that are absolutely hell-bent on self-destruction.
Ce la vie
“And do know what, they did work. They really did. As weather-vanes and that was all.”
An excellent rant overall, Peta. Very good.
“…a “portfolio of technologies” including nuclear and hydrogen power…”
I do wish these CCC-type people would stop talking about hydrogen as a power source. Hydrogen is no different than electrical wires, simply a power transmission method.
And a very inefficient one at that!
Perhaps if all of the climate alarmists blow hard enough on calm days, they’ll get the turbines turning and they can increase the number of windy days.
Place gears with long chains connected from the propeller shafts to gigantic Hamster Wheels at the bases of the turbines and assign Griff and Loydo to Run on still days
Even easier – plug fans into the windmills to generate wind for the windmills.
ROFL!!
Modelling
Nuff said, already.
But I can tell you now, the Parliamentary dictatorship doesn’t really care whether it’s right or wrong.
They’re going to do it no matter what.
This is wonderful.
CCC, a bunch of RE idiots trying to pull the wool over the eyes of innocent, gullible lay people, got caught lying and obfuscating big-time.
CCC, which advises UK PM Johnson, aka, the UNRULY MOP, used 7 days of low wind in 2050, whereas the low-wind days were 65 in 2021, and 78 in 2016.
CCC wanted to make wind look extra, extra good.
More low-wind days means vastly greater CAPACITY, MW, of instantly available, reliable, low-cost, traditional power plants, which must be staffed, fueled, ready to operate, in good working order, as demanded by the UK grid operator, to fill in any wind (and solar) shortfalls; the UK has LOTS OF DAYS without sun, throughout the year.
Initially, CCC was obstructing the public release of its report to THE UNRULY MOP
CCC was ordered by the Court to release the report to the public.
Are you f….g kidding me?
We are talking hundreds of millions of small folks spending $TRILLIONS EACH YEAR, to “save the world”, and CCC is blatantly lying about the feasibility and cost!
These CCC people should be drawn and quartered.
The US had less wind electricity in 2020 and in 2021, than in 2019, even though more CAPACITY, MW, of wind turbines were installed, per EIA data of wind systems connected to US grids.
This likely was the case in Europe as well.
ALL OF THIS IS AWFUL NEWS FOR THE SCOTLAND CLIMATE MEETING
BTW, every wind turbine draws significant electricity from the grid, whether it is producing or not.
Tucker Carlson’s recent episode is also “AWFUL NEWS FOR THE SCOTLAND MEETING”
https://www.bitchute.com/video/yQNlUfz0aksf/
TUCKER CARLSON ORIGINALS – S01E009 – BLOWN AWAY: THE PEOPLE VS WIND POWER (10-21-2021)
Has the unqualified ignorant CCC wrItten a paper on the Hydrogen question? How it’s to become a new source of energy; safety; supply etc. I would like to read it
Previously – thanks to the CCC – we’ve had highlights like this
“Grenfell: clad in climate-change politics”
https://www.spiked-online.com/2017/06/26/grenfell-clad-in-climate-change-politics/
I would ask how the CCC sleeps at night, but then Selwyn Gummer made his daughter eat a burger to prove BSE was not a major problem.
That CCC policy will cost a fortune just to have all the cladding removed. Bad news for leaseholders.
In the windiest area of the US–the Great Plains–the southwest Power Pool is only getting about 4800 megawatts of wind generation (capacity is about 30,000 MW), and meeting only about 16% of the demand. Thirty-six percent (36%) is coming from coal. Tell me again how great this is?!
I haven’t flown anywhere since 2008 but I’ve booked a holiday in 2022 which involves a certain amount of flying. I’ll also do my bit to increase meat consumption.
Bonus points for eating a steak on the plane.
This makes total sense, the CCC used The Imperial College London wind modeling results. These ICL chaps did a stellar job modeling the covid pandemic. Looks like they used the same excellent model code to predict the wind.
The CCC are nearly as delusional as the latest Government plan.
See here:https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1028157/net-zero-strategy.pdf
It is not a strategy, just an impossible wish list. This is my comment elsewhere, the webite of the Engineering Institution which has not even been consulted, or at least the Electrical Engineers have not:
https://communities.theiet.org/discussions/viewtopic/807/29377
You can see the questions I want to ask!
It’s good to see sensible questions being asked on an engineering institution’s website. I’m not aware of any such institution which doesn’t, as a matter of policy, actively promote eco-lunacy.
This surely depends on how many turbines and where they are?
UK’s turbines will mostly be large turbines off shore in areas with higher wind capacity
“What in Pete’s name is “higher wind capacity”?
Faster wind? More consistent wind?
What happens “off shore” quite a lot? Got any kind of a clue?
Doesn’t matter Griffy. It honestly doesn’t make one single damnable bit of difference. Low wind is determined by air pressure systems – frankly the whole of the UK isn’t big enough to be in more than one pressure system at a time – they really don’t get that close. If we’re in a pressure system giving us low wind speed then you’d have to be several hundred miles offshore to get something different. I’m disappointed in your sheer stupidity and ignorance – have you no idea what all of this deceit and corruption is leading to? Are you really that gullible that you can’t see that this entrenched greed is going to lead to monumental suffering? Can’t you even see that what you’re doing is wrong, that your attitudes are part of the problem? I’m sorry to break this to you but when the butchers bill comes due – it’s going to be due to you and people like you. You have blood on your hands and no amount of washing will ever get rid of it.
When will you learn, Griff, mate?
(It’s a rhetorical question)
The larger the turbine, the faster the wind needs to blow before they start working, and the more reliable electricity they use to spin when the wind isn’t fast enough.
They made ‘detailed assumptions’ that are demonstrated to be wrong, and they refuse to accept that they even might be wrong. You should get a job there, griff, it matches your skill set.
How much higher?
Do you know? Do you care?
In Australia official wind turbine Capacity Factor percentage of Nameplate Capacity is 30% to 35% however private monitoring of the AEMO dashboard actual performance over time indicated that the average is 28.5% and for solar even less at 17.5%
Not only unreliably intermittent performers but a huge waste of land area, and then add the land for feeder transmission lines to connect to grids and ancillary back up equipment, and without subsidies no investor would risk money.
Doesn’t matter how many wind turbines exist if the wind isn’t blowing. Multiply the total nameplate capacity by zero and you’ll always get the same result.
“ as part of an extensive body of modelling and analysis”
Once again – models ALL THE WAY DOWN!
No measurement data, just models. Models full of subjective assumptions instead of reality.
““[The CCC] advised that this target was feasible but refused to disclose the calculations on which its costs figures were based, and it became clear that the scale of the challenge of net zero was not well understood when the target was passed into law,” states the report” (bolding mine, tpg)
Is *anyone* surprised?
Not just windy days, but windy days within a safe and inclusive boundary.
The following chart shows UK daily average estimated wind farm capacity factors for offshore and onshore for 1980 to 2016, based on estimates derived from historic weather data with re-estimation based on actual wind farm performance where known: credit Staffell, Iain and Pfenninger, Stefan (2016). Using Bias-Corrected Reanalysis to Simulate Current and Future Wind Power Output. Energy 114, pp. 1224-1239. doi: 10.1016/j.energy.2016.08.068
It is scatter plotted against daily average temperature – a total of over 26,000 data points. It clearly shows how inadequate the assumptions used by the CCC are. At a minimum, they should have used this sort of history to show that their plans were workable. Instead, they simply decided to commission work that showed the system might be able to survive a very short term unfavourable weather event. There was no consideration of the effects of persistent underperformance or indeed overperformance (which leads to substantial curtailment, because storage is uneconomic).
Great graph.
It clearly shows, the capacity’s factor of wind very often is less than 10%
The average CF is about 30%.
It is important to note wind power is the cube of wind speed
In addition, at very low CFs, say 3 to 4%, with winds at 4 mph and less, the wind turbine is producing about as much as it is consuming, i.e., no net feed to the grid. Yikes
The graph shows a lot of red at low CFs, meaning onshore winds are frequently very weak.
The RE clowns at CCC are of-the-charts fabricators of lies.
They should be drawn and quartered
[It doesn’t add up…] reply
Excellent post and reference. I read through the paper, which is easily available via the link provided. From the referenced paper, section 4.4, Figure 13, shows the hourly output of German wind power Jan – July of 2014, both actual and modeled (showing that their model is pretty good).
This graph represents the reality of what is discussed in this overall post. The worst of the wind proponents will simply draw an average line through the random output graph and declare wind a great resource (you know who you are..:) ). The CCC simply assume that most of those nasty zeros (or 5 % and less) will go away with better siting. The reality is that no matter where the wind farm is, its actual output will always look something like the above graph, ie unusable as anything but a random output generator, best suited for the modernistic wing of an art library….
Wind power, absent the “Star Trek” magic battery, will always effectively require near 100 % backup, making its utility in the real world an expensive fantasy. The “green” public will be happy with that, so long as the reliable backup power is kept hidden away, out of the larger public eye. Government subsidies will keep electricity price seemingly low, to keep the illusion of wind power alive. What we really get is electricity at twice the price of just having the reliable sources, and lots of art deco windmills to mesmerize the green washed public.
We can think of all this wind power stuff as a really expensive art exhibit 🙂
GCR, high speed cosmic mostly protons, creates ions in the upper stratosphere and those ions when they move in the wind, experience a tangential force due to earth’s magnetic field which creates Cyclone storms … in the winter, fall, and spring. In the past high GCR only occurred during solar minimum.
At the end of the past D-O warming periods there is a sudden increase in dust from the Sahara Desert deposited on the Greenland ice sheets which indicates that some mechanism is suddenly causing massive cyclones in the atmosphere. The strong the cooling the more dust is deposited. This indicates the mechanism that causes the dust to be deposited is causing the cooling and the cooling is directly correlated with the increase in the GCR.
During solar cycle 23/24 coronal holes suddenly appeared during solar cycle minimums at low latitude regions on the sun.
The coronal holes produce a rapid change in wind speed. The change in wind speed (high steady solar wind speed does not cause the change in the ionosphere) causes a space charge differential in the ionosphere which removes ions which cause a reduction in cloud cover and warming in specific regions.
Ironically, the cyclones will occur regularly (just had the first set of cyclones of the west coast of North America complete with high rainfall) and the winds will be strong enough (hurricane like) to destroy coastal wind turbines.
Observational it is fact, that the solar cycle 25 sunspots are disappearing. Sunspot groups use to have a typical life of 22 days. Now most sunspot groups are so weak magnetically that they cannot be seen visibly. Those sunspot groups that can be seen, have an average lifetime of about 10 days. Solar cycle 25 is failing. The Maunder minimum was also proceeded by a failed solar cycle.
The cyclic D-O warming periods occur in both interglacial period and the glacial period. D-O periods always end with an abrupt drop in temperature.
The Maunder minimums, are cyclic events, a period of 30 to 70 years, when the sun does not produce sunspots and as we just found out the coronal holes which normally appear at low latitudes, move up to the solar poles.
The Maunder minimum causes the solar heliosphere to shrinks in size (for 30 to 70 years) and it has less magnetic flux in it to deflect cosmic particles which are called galactic cosmic rays (GCR).
There have been 9 D-O warmings (also called Bond events) during this interglacial period. Greenland ice temperature, last 11,000 years determined from ice core analysis, Richard Alley’s paper.
http://www.climate4you.com/images/GISP2%20TemperatureSince10700%20BP%20with%20CO2%20from%20EPICA%20DomeC.gif
This is from Wikipedia.
Dansgaard–Oeschger events (often abbreviated D–O events), named after palaeoclimatologists Willi Dansgaard and Hans Oeschger, are rapid climate fluctuations that occurred 25 times during the last glacial period. Some scientists say that the events occur quasi-periodically with a recurrence time being a multiple of 1,470 years… ….The comparable climate cyclicity during the Holocene is referred to as Bond events.
“future energy supply from a “ ‘portfolio of technologies’ including nuclear and hydrogen power”….. Hydrogen is only a conversion of energy from other sources. I hope the article mis-represented the intent of the quote, if this is the standard of analysis displayed by CCC god help the UK, quite apart from fibbing about windless days.
Maybe they could use diesel generators to turn the windmills to produce energy?
Redge,
They can’t! The generators are already tasked with powering searchlights to keep the solar panels producing through cloudy spells and night!
The problem here is not a failure of the wind-harvesting technology, but a failure of the wind resource itself. Building addition wind turbines won’t work, only reliable alternate back-up power will do. This raises the perpetual question: If you need a full-capacity, fully-maintained standby system, what value does the wind power system add?
Why don’t the “modelers” who try to predict how much electricity can be generated by wind power study past wind measurements at potential turbine sites? Such data are readily available from airports and other weather stations, where the average wind speed and direction are normally recorded hourly, and converted into a “wind rose” (frequency table of winds from any of 16 directions, and for several ranges of wind speed).
There is no reason to believe that future years will be any more or less windy than past years, so if someone wanted to get a reasonable idea of the total power output from a wind turbine per year, they just have to get a wind rose of the frequency of wind speeds in a given range. Multiply the frequency of each wind speed range by the anticipated kW generated in that range, and that results in average annual kW (then multiply by 8,760 hours/yr to get kWh per year).
So why do these so-called “modelers” think there will be fewer calm days per year in the future than during recent years?
Back in the 1970’s, I used to participate in weekly races of Sunfish sailboats on a lake in the Pocono mountains in northeastern Pennsylvania during the summer. The land around the lake was not much higher in elevation than the lake itself, so that the lake was considered a fairly windy place. The more exciting races were during relatively strong winds either ahead of a cold front (winds out of the south) or just after a cold front (winds out of the northwest). But for every exciting race in windy weather, there were always at least two “drifters”–very light winds where everyone baked in the sun searching the lake for the slightest ripples indicating a breeze, and a typical race lasted two hours instead of a half hour in a good wind (along the same course).
Of course, the people there always liked telling stories about the windy races, about how they almost capsized (or possibly an opponent did capsize). There weren’t too many stories about drifters, which everyone would rather forget.
The British climate modelers may have suffered from the same bias as the Pocono Sunfish sailors. They probably remember many storms with gale-force winds, and wonder how many kW those wind turbines would generate in such a storm. The problem is, a wind turbine that can endure such a storm without being blown apart will turn slowly in light winds, and not at all on a “drifter” day (or night, and wind speeds are usually slower at night, when few people are outside to notice). Most people are glad to enjoy the outdoors, and don’t care much about the wind on a calm, sunny day, and they may not notice the wind turbines sitting still.
But someone who wants to generate power from the wind has to measure the wind 24/7/365, and take into account those “drifter” times when little or no power will be produced.
Ignoring the huge problem with storage what do we know about windpower:
1. Payback is about 10 years.
2. Lifetime is about 20 years.
So for the first 10 years the turbine is simply offsetting the CO2 it took to produce it.
Then in the second 10 years if everything goes well, you could start to reduce CO2.
But in fact you cant because in the second 10 years all your energy must be used to produce a replacement turbine.
so for 20 years after you install a turbine there is no net reduction in CO2.
Even from then on you are only getting half the reduction you would expect, because of the energy required to replace the turbines ar end of life.
I think your numbers are off by quite a bit. Payback is around 30 years, lifetime is around 15 years, 20 if you have plenty of spares and are lucky. There is no conceivable way that these things will ever replace the energy used to make them. They are inefficient, unreliable energy sinks which are only good for one purpose – getting government subsidies; without those they are just useless blights on the landscape.
You are very likely correct. I was being charitable in my numbers.
The point is that there is not enough surplus energy in a windmill to create new windmills. So the switch to windmills will end up creating CO2, not reducing CO2.
The same problem is even worse for solar.
“The CCC’s modelling, which drew on a study by Imperial College London” – let me guess -was it from the Grantham Institute ???
Pay no attention to the 4 feet of BS I’m currently standing in…I will stand by the lies we told a few years ago.
Well, that’s all you need to know, that bastion of ‘top class’ modelling. Maybe Neil Fergusson was the modeller ?
Well what would you expect? It’s Gummer, the best possible reason for reform of the HOL.
One member if the CCC is also big in the Behavioural Insights Unit a private company which exists to advise HMG
about how to lead the sheeple. What’s he doing there?
JF
Net zero by 2050 without much more nuclear power is not possible unless millions of people are going to starve or freeze to death. It should be obvious.
Imperial College modelling…
What could go wrong eh….?
Isn’t that called “parameterising the model”?
It’s a bit of a shocker!
The BBC HAS NOT covered this story of the Climate change committee (fibbing/lying/corruptly being creative/stupidly – delete as necessary) not using clearly sensible figures for it’s predictions of financial costs then fighting to keep secret the calculations and methods of how the got the incorrect answers.
If the BBC (and most other news media) fail to cover a major government committee failure, deliberate or otherwise, then the BBC believe in the CCC corruptly doctoring the data.
I have just had a comment removed by the BBC news website on this issue.
Interesting times.
There appears to be some belief now that as the world warms wind speeds will drop. ‘Stilling’ I believe they call it.
“Hydrogen power” is NOT a source of energy, so ZERO energy supply can “come from” it.
I think we should start referring to renewables as intermittents from now on.