Guest essay by Eric Worrall
The Tony Blair Institute has calculated that a wind farm equal to the largest offshore wind farm ever built must be completed every 10 weeks, to hit Net Zero by 2050.
UK ‘must build equivalent of worlds biggest wind farm every 10 weeks for next 20 years’ to hit net zero targets
Under existing framework, 90 per cent of all electricity generation in Britain will be on a government-backed contract, stifling competition, warns Tony Blair Institute
Harry Cockburn Environment Correspondent
The UK must build the equivalent of a 1.2-gigawatt offshorewind farm – the largest ever built – every 10 weeks for the next 20 years in order to hit its legally binding net-zero targets, a report from the Tony Blair Institute claims.
The report highlights how the current energy crisis, which has resulted in numerous small energy providers going bust, has exposed “profound problems of design and regulation in the retail and wholesale energy markets”, and says without major adaptation, the energy market is heading towards a greater level of centralisation and higher costs for consumers.
It warns that without an overhaul, up to 90 per cent of all electricity generation in the UK will be on a government-backed contract.
As a result of prolonged government support, the report’s authors warn that by 2035 energy providers will have “limited incentives” to respond to supply and demand.
Instead, the report urges a new effort to adapt to deliver a flexible, affordable system.
…
Read more: https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/uk-must-build-equivalent-of-worlds-biggest-wind-farm-every-10-weeks-for-next-20-years-to-hit-net-zero-targets-b1967122.html
According to the Dogger Bank Wind Farm website, their 1.2GW wind farm cost £3 billion (USD $4 billion). So 52 weeks in a year, 52 ÷ 10 x £3 billion = £15.6 billion per year.
Having said that, the cost would likely rise over time, the Dogger Bank wind farm is a over 100km offshore. If you need to go 100km+ offshore for a good wind farm site, how long will the extension cord stretch, after a a few years of building an equivalent new site every 10 weeks?
Of course, you won’t truly get to net zero unless someone also builds battery backup for all that wind power, in case of another prolonged wind drought. But let’s leave them in their happy place, it would be a shame to spoil their moment with some basic economics.
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‘Basic economics’?! Basic facts!
Coming from a lawyer, surprisingly he might be correct.
I thought he was in Moscow advising Vlad the Terrible how to get rid of mass destination weapons in Ukraine.
You do realise that you are allowed to refer to lawyers as “blood-suckers”, courtesy of Jurassic Park’s John Hammond character!!! After all, it was good old lawyer Tony baby who’s government responded to concerns that Britain could be turning into a “claims & compensation culture” like America, by having a review of the situation. That “review” (by lawyers) concluded that no, Britain was not becoming a “claims & compensation culture” like America, & it was soon after that decision, that we saw adverts on UK tv asking “Have you had an accident & it wasn’t your fault, Injury Lawyers For You (other blood-suckers are available) can help you get the compensation you deserve!!!”. AtB.
They’re trying to get rid of subways?
In a word , in a previous calculation which I published on WUWT Tony is wailing from my minaret. Except for one thing. I said 20 MW per day from now until forever. That was too optimistic.
Let us assume that there are no fossil fuels or nuclear. A wind farm must also generate enough power to be its own backup. Let us assume that this backup is clean green hydrogen working at 50 % efficiency (70% on hydrogen generation and 70% on end use ) A wind turbine operating at 40% capacity factor must supply its share of grid load and put enough energy into the hydrogen bank to supply power during the 60% of the time when the wind doresn’t blow . That means that you need 1.2 GW every 2 WEEKS so good luck with that Bojo and NutNuts and the unicorn brigade . It is tragic that the morons who run our national energyu infrastructure don’t do basic calculations. and that Blair idiot was the one who brought in the climate control act. He obvously did not do his homework then. Nor did Milliband , Worthington and the rest of the sorry green crew.
God almighty! just because this ex PM finally gets it almost right are we to consider him a wise sage and statesman. I think not!
Aren’t these off shore wind turbines going to have a ten to fifteen year life span?
Better go with an every five week completion.
I was thinking the same. Most will need to be replaced at least once in 30 years. And what is the net energy return ? It takes energy for mining and transportation refinement transportation production transportation installation maintenance and retirement/disposal transportation.
How much energy for the non recyclable concrete and fiberglass? And what about all of the machinery required to support it all?
There are too many variables for any long range estimate to be near accurate.
I am yet to see any way they can provide a net energy return.
Any H2 production plant operating from wind will have low utilisation. Imagine process control on an electrolysis plant where the power goes from zero to full bore in a matter of hours every day or so.
The utilisation of any industry hanging off wind generators will be horrible.
The H2 production plant will have a ready supply of hydrogen fuel to run the plant to create more hydrogen fuel the next time the wind stops blowing. It’s sort of a perpetual motion machine.
Up here in Carnoustie in the East of Scotland, a gigantic windmill farm is being built off shore.
It is amusing (not) to see the destruction being done to the countryside – and on one of our three golf courses – bringing the cables ashore.
What is really surreal is the amount of diesel which is being used in this enterprise.It would be impossible to calculate what is needed to power the offshore ships and rigs, the enormous tented villages, the number of high powered vehicles not to mention the number of hot dogs and other comestibles by the workforce.
All this for a charge to the taxpayer of over 3 billion pounds for ten years of intermittent electricity.
COP Paris was hilarious, but COPGlasgow tops it.
We have 8 years to save the world?
The RE requirements to achieve zero-this or that, are off the charts outrageous, completely unrealistic, as are the computerized temperature scribbles shown on charts for scare-mongering purposes.
We have RE idiots in New England as well.
Have fun reading this article
WIND AND SOLAR TO PROVIDE 30 PERCENT OF NEW ENGLAND ELECTRICITY CONSUMPTION BY 2050
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/wind-and-solar-provide-50-percent-of-future-new-england
Energy systems analysts of Denmark, Ireland, Germany, the UK, the Netherlands, etc., have known for decades, if you have a significant percentage of (wind + solar) on your grid, you better have available:
– An adequate capacity, MW, of other power plants to counteract any variations of (W+S), 24/7/365
– High-capacity, MW, connections to nearby grids
– An adequate capacity of energy storage, such as:
1) Pumped hydro storage
2) Hydro plants with reservoir storage
3) Grid-scale battery systems
The more presence of variable (W+S) on the NE grid, the more the other generators have to vary their outputs, which causes these other generators to be less efficient (more wear and tear, more Btu/kWh, more CO2/kWh).
Owners in European countries with much wind and solar on the grids get compensated for their losses.
Those compensations are charged to the general public, not to the Owners of wind and solar systems, as part of the political (subsidy + cost shifting) regimen, to make wind and solar appear price-competitive versus fossil fuels.
RE folks often advocate:
1) Electricity must be 100% renewable, or zero carbon, or carbon-neutral by 2050
2) Getting rid of the remaining nuclear plants
3) Getting rid of natural gas, coal, and oil plants
4) More biomass burning
The capacity factor looks accounted for already. They have BESS, hydro & other renewables. The 1.2GW x 104 x 30% = 37 GW avg which is assumed to be enough when other renewables are available.
If demand varies about 20 to 32GW the simplistic view would be they could have enough. But practically & economically is still very difficult when wind is 3% to 85% capacity factor per hr, 10% to 75% for a day, 20% to 50% for a week, who knows for a season or year. These are all great schemes as long as someone else will pay/subsidises the costs. A perfectly reliable generation & grid ready for the 1in20yr variations are not economical. It pays more to generators(spot price) when the grid is at it’s worse than having excess capacity wasted until its rare use. YMMV.
As soon as you see the name Tony Blair you know there will be something iffy going on
The problem is that Boris Johnson is making Blair look good.
One uses his fingers to comb his hair, the other uses a balloon.
It’s amazing that no one would say that when BoJo came to power. Now a wimp like Blair looks better. Sad truth
Tony B Liar is certainly a more accomplished liar than the clown Johnson. I think it is because he has convinced himself that he is telling the truth and delivers with finesse. While Johnson is just a rambling shambolic idiot that has escaped from someone’s village.
I didn’t even knew that the Brits use to name Institutes after war criminals and mass murderers.
I thought this is just in marxist countr… oh wait Britain is on the way to become one.
Nobody trusts him in the UK so he is probably condemning what he is proposing. Tide is turning against this nonsense.
“Tide is turning against this nonsense.”
It looks that way. Reality is dawning.
I don’t always ask war criminals for their advice, but when I do it’s about how many wind turbines it takes to find WMD in Iraq.
WMDs were found in Iraq, as were WMD programs.
Saddam actively promoted the idea that he had an active and lethal WMD program. He sent that message to foreigners to deter them from attacking him, and he sent that message to his own generals to keep them in line.
It should be no surprise that people thought Saddam had an active WMD program. Under the threat of war, Saddam still refused to give up his WMD, even though an active program didn’t exist.
Saddam could have agreed to allow weapons inspectors in and pretend to give up something he didn’t really have, and had he done so, he might still be running Iraq.
But, in the end, Saddam miscalculated, and it led to his demise.
Tony Blair, multi-millionaire Socialist lawyer!!!
Never trust a Scotsman who hides his roots. ( I don’t mean his hair. ) I remember him telling Dutch children to “Come and see us in England.”
A git from Fettes does not qualify one as a Scotsman . Just a sense of entitlement and a helping hand with sinecures from the old boy network of the country’s
soi-disant ” finest brains”. Like the Eton ticket that Cameron and Johnson cashed in on
Being born in Edinburgh makes him a Scotsman. Doesn’t stop him being a git, though.
I find it amazing that no one studies or discusses the climate downsides to wind and solar generation. All that energy produced must be removed from the atmosphere and has to have some effect. Even the other severe environmental impacts are not usually given serious consideration.
A point I’ve made for several years now after reading a Polish paper describing changed wind patterns down to wind mills sucking the energy out of the air
If a change in wind patterns due to deforestation can cause the snows of Kilimanjaro to melt, what else can it do?
Deforestation for grazing was indirectly responsible for the loss of ice on Kilimanjaro. The direct reason was ablation and sublimation, not melting. You can do lots of things with ice at minus 16 degress C, but melting isn’t one of them.
You are correct in that the 1st Law of Thermodynamics – conservation of energy must apply here, but….
The energy taken out of the entire SW solar and wind energy budget by PV farms and wind turbine farms are a minuscule fraction of that total blowing in the wind and hitting the Earth via insolation. Photo-autotrophs (photosynthesis via plants, algae, phytoplankton, etc) take far more out of the insolation budget than Man could ever do with solar farms and that is also a tiny fraction of total insolation warming the Earth. Conversion of sunlight to energy rich organic molecules by photo-autotrophs , while enormous in the global total, is so tiny climate modolers long ago realized it could be ignored for all the other sources of error and uncertainty.
Rick,you are using the co2 Argument.
Neither does 0.01 %of co2 impact the climate nor does the absorption of 0.01% of windmillsenergy impact wind pattern.
I guess an average hill combined or even an average sized Forrest does absorb more wind than a 1000 windmills as the surface of even the biggest blades is fairly small.
If we have a significant impact from a tiny amount of CO2 why not from the tiny contribution from green energy projects. Remember the butterfly flapping its wings. How would we know the significance if no one is looking. Local effects are probably noticeable and we are proposing many factors more projects in an effort to reach net zero. It is easy to say it is insignificant but I have a Missouri mindset and need the data.
“I find it amazing that no one studies or discusses the climate downsides to wind and solar generation.”
I think that’s because the alarmists have no viable alternatives. They can’t use fossil fuels, or nuclear, so they are left with windmills and solar which are totally inadequate to the task, but alarmists don’t want to hear that they are pursuing an impossible task so they carry on like windmills and solar are not problematic.
I guess it could be described as denial of reality.
If there are any impacts, they will blame those impacts on CO2 and use them as further proof that we need more wind turbines.
This is good news.
Clearly, the Blair Institute is pointing out to the Blairites the absurdity of NetZero.
I never thought I would hear anything sensible emerging from anything associated with Blair, but I may be wrong on this occasion.
What the hell is “net zero” really other than some ephemeral goal that can’t, by definition, be met to satisfy a small group of people?
It sounds sooo scientific to the unwashed
I always feel depressed when I hear someone start using a particular word or phrase, over & over again with great authority, suggesting that they have recently discovered said word or phrase & desire to sound authoritative!!! I knew someone who used to do just that!!!
Net zero is the amount of money and property the eco-communist want us serfs to own. The WEF has already said that “you will own nothing, and be happy”.
Of special note, we will own zero property and have zero money; but they will own all the property and have all the money.
It means that you can emit CO2 in one area, but it’s OK so long as CO2 is being taken out of the atmosphere somewhere else.
And (per USGS) every 6MW capacity expends 1 million tons of fossil fuels over a 25 year life span, most in construction. I’m sure that was a land-based wind farm cost, so for maritime wind farm construction and maintenance, distribution, and delivery, multiply (conservatively low) by 5. ((1200MW/6)*5)*5.2 == commit to burning 5.2 quadrillion tons of fossil fuel per year for the next 60 years (at which point, if you haven’t been replacing the oldest ones for 25 years, you will have zero generation capacity and about a century of waste disposal ahead of you — and even more atmospheric CO2. “Yah cahn’t get thayah from heyah.”
If it can’t be done, it won’t. As simple as that. This net-zero charade and the climate scam in general is the most massive fraud on public trust ever attempted. The outcome will increasingly become evermore catastrophic the longer this charade of intellectual dishonesty continues.
” …… the most massive fraud on public trust ever attempted.”
It’s just the bastard child of “socialism is really, really great for poor people”.
I know that and you know that but how do we get the eejits who drive the charabang to put the brakes on
And thereby lies the problem. It’s like watching a car crash in slow motion and ruing the fact that you have no way to stop it.
It has always been a bait-and-switch. Never about the environment, always about the transfer of wealth and power to crony capitalists and the neo-fascisti. It is apparent in the Glasgow consensus to tie up western banking under international political control. And the switch is potentially, perhaps even likely. to occur without a single wind turbine being built.
Crony capitalism is just another name for socialism. Having government pick winners and losers has nothing to do with capitalism.
Crony Capitalism is Elites helping Elites.
This is how it works it authoritarian societies.
Net zero really means net zero human activity
They should be upfront about it
net-zero really means g e n o c i d e of you and me and our children, through starvation and resulting wars that will be ignited from the social pressures these policies are producing and will ramp up considerably in the coming decades if this climate scam Marxism is allowed to contunue. The Elites push this because they don’t consider this as affecting them or their family… until it does.
The Elites are driving this, for the Great Reset, they have no intention of allowing their lives to be affected!!!
UN Agenda 21 it is properly called!!!
“Net Zero “= No power.
Here in Oregon Commissar
Kate is demanding offshore power 2035. Ok. We tried wave power back in the 2000’s
I believe the prototypes are on the bottom near Coos Bay .
The Left may demand and get the resources allocated today to make this Net-zero happen tomorrow. And if it does, then when tomorrow comes and we are at or near net-zero, we’ll be too poor to replace the failing aging wind energy systems as they break, as they certainly will. It will be a death spiral into a hole the population cannot dig its way out of because it took 100 years of intensive fossil fuel to build our society to this point.
Nuclear power is the only hope for our society in the long term. That the Left rejects nuclear power out of hand is the clearest signal of what the real intention is.
Let us just hope for a stinker of a winter this year and we should all burn as much stuff as we can to bring the system to its knees before it is too late
Remember the Law of Diminishing Returns.
The first windfarm will be put in the best place for windspeeds, wind reliability, ease of maintenance and proximity to where the electricity is needed.
The second will be a little worse placed.
More compromises by the third.
They say they want 5 a year for 30 years. How useless will the fiftieth windfarm be?
And we’re less than halfway there…
” and proximity to where the electricity is needed. “
Proximity to existing lines that lead to need.
Wind energy facilities “piggy-back” on the existing grid to save money.
You need to account for transmission losses. I know Griff will say a smart grid will take care of that, but some of us like to stay within reality.
Another Reality Check. Not only is the construction impossible, but, as Eric mentioned, the whole issue of battery storage is not included. The offshore wind farms need inspection and maintainence, and this would almost certainly be by boat or helicopter, burning more fossil fuels. It gets worse from there, considering raw materials, construction utilization of fossil fuels, and the tremendous chopping up of our flying friends.
But they mean well. Shouldn’t that be enough? /sarc
Yes, it’s called “virtue signalling”!!!
Of course, their calculations won’t include 100% backup from reliables for when the wind doesn’t blow
(don’t do it Griff, you’ll just be subjected to the GuffawOmeter)
How can this possibly be true? Hasn’t griff been assuring us that the UK is already getting more than 40% of it’s electricity from renewables.
Electricity is currently about one sixth of the UK’s total energy consumption. So 40% of one sixth is about 7% of the total. But probably nearer 5%.
As an aside this year wind has rarely broken 40% of the total, when it does it is usually early on a windy Sunday morning. Tonight on a fairly windy Saturday it’s 35%, with gas at 27% and nuclear 15%.
As we know griff cherry picks his numbers.
Today (5th Dec) at 2.50pm unreliables were providing 38.8% of UK electricity (35.5% wind) and fossil fuels 29.6%.(28.7% gas)
But,
Over the last week unreliables were at 31% (28.4% wind) and fossil fuels 40.3% (38% gas)
Over the last month unreliables 27% (24% wind) and fossil fuels 42.6% (39.9% gas)
Over the last year unreliables 23.7% (18.5% wind) and fossil fuels (42.1% gas)
You can do this comparison every day and whilst there are occasions, sometimes days, when the wind outpaces fossil fuels on the longer runs it is always the latter which provide the most electricity.
https://iamkate.com
Over the last year should read
unreliables 23.7% (18.5% wind) and fossil fuels 42.1% (40.1% gas)
Q: then what recharges the battery energy storage system (BESS)?
A: Another equally-sized array of wind farms.
Q: How big (capacity in GW-hrs) must the BESS be to endure a week of little or no wind?
A: The typical BESS design discharges from 90% to 10% in around 3-4 hours. So 7×24/4= 42 BESS systems at future UK grid demand when everything is electrified, from transport to home heat pumps, on top of current demand. That BESS answer puts net-zero in fantasy land.
Yes, people assume BESS will be recharged at night when consumer electrical demand is low. But the fact of the matter is that is nonsense. All battery storage requires its own nameplate charging system in order to operate reliably.
I have read at least one study which said that Li ion batteries should only be discharged 50% to extend their usable life. If these battery farms need need new batteries every ten years, well, that makes them impractical. Significant grid scale storage is simply not possible with current battery technology.
Another issue with Li ion is that they degrade when they are kept fully charged. The hotter they are, the faster they degrade.
Rather than “net zero” emission, they should strive for net positive effect. Don’t be green, leave Green to its niches, go green, emit.
If you take the price of the Victoria, Australia back up battery and upgrade it for 10 windless days in the UK (Not unknown) the cost of a back up battery for the UK would be £3,000,000,000,000 (£3 trillion, $4trillion) currently equivalent to 1 1/4 years GDP. With no estimates as to the land area used or tonnage of materials necessary. Is anybody keen on doing a “back of the envelope” calculation for those?.
And, they need to be replaced in a decade.
None of the signers are serious about meeting these goals …Oh the fanatics are, but not the money people, or the energy sector . Unlike the crockpot activists they understand that achieving or even trying to achieve this goal would destroy the economy and the country. The political sector signs on so they can tell the voters they tried but we’re stopped by ( fill in the blank)
Wreckers and hoarders.
“crockpot activists”, is that someone who is an extreme advocate for slow cooking?
Go Green, Go Broke
Go Green, Go Woke, Go Broker faster.
Or, they can just do black outs to limit demand to what can actually be produced.
Think that is impossible. It used to be impossible to shut down an economy for a seasonal virus; it used to be impossible to force people to participate in medical experimentation by forcing them to take an experimental vaccine that has not been proven safe & effective.
They don’t have to replace fossil fuel generated electric power, they can just lock you down in a black out.
exactly. Build Back Socialism.
If nobody takes the vaccine, how do you prove it to be “safe and “effective”. Ever heard of a randomized, double blind, placebo controlled clinical trial? It’s called “science”.
“Harald Schwarz, professor of power distribution at the University of Cottbus, went straight to the point saying: “die gesicherte Leistung von Wind + Sonne = 0,” which means:“The guaranteed output of wind + sun = 0.”“The guaranteed output of wind energy and photovoltaics is between zero, two or three percent. So de-facto is zero.”
The sun does not always shine nor does the wind blow reliably, but coal and gas always burn and uranium always fissions.
“Wind Farm Every 10 Weeks to Hit Net Zero” is probably defined in a moving window, but, even then, is overly optimistic. Still, it’s better odds than a Solar Farm that will hit Net Zero every 12 hours.
“Solar Farm that will hit Net Zero every 12 hours.”
Brilliant. Made me chuckle. Have an upvote from me.
And not spoken in some bizarre haiku. Another upvote. 🙂
Seeing a photo of the Bliar, or hearing him on the radio or TV, makes me feel positively ill.
From the link:
Also there has been a significant drop in electricity consumption per capita which is the true purpose of the imposition of inefficient and expensive wind and solar.
Redistributive change and lowered expectations is both sufficient and necessary for a Green Leap.
How much of that emissions drop was due to major industries picking up and leaving for geener, err less green, shores?
That’s the reason Massachusetts has lowered its emissions- few industries left, mostly colleges, hospitals and some high tech like software, genetics research/engineering. Every town has dozens of empty factory buildings. The “best” jobs people seek are now in bureaucracies. The state leaders brag that the state is the most energy efficient in the nation.
This is how the industry/government alliance works. The big players team up with governments to squeeze out the little guy. The energy providers get big business (for now) and the government gets the industry centralized into a single or small number of big players, which will comply with any government dictate like shutting off power to dissidents. If the big players resist, the government will just nationalize them, and probably will eventually anyway.
CAGW/Global Warming/Climate Change was seen as the perfect “crisis” by politicians a long time ago, which can enable nearly unlimited opportunities for graft and centralizing control – especially in places like the US where power was specifically de-centralized in the Constitution.