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.
‘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.
The man is living in cloud cuckoo land !!!! If he thinks the ordinary British can afford his dream of “net zero” nonsense he really should be LOCKED UP !!!!
Britain home of the Industrial Revolution has lost its mojo, all it has left is a BoJo.
1.2gw is about 200 turbines assuming the larger 6mw. That’s around 300 opencast mines the volume of Wembley stadium for copper and iron ore alone for cables and motors..every ten weeks and that’s just the uk. How the hell do we mine without fossil fuel in level 1 and 2 income countries were the ores are found. Oh yes..they must use wind and solar that we will pay for….the irony is laughable.
Is longterm free abundant energy from renewables possible…yes and a noble goal for humanity….but it cannot be achieved following the autocratic bollocks our governments are spewing forth.
No and ‘noble’ implies a moral aspect, as Alex Epstein says: ‘fossil fuels make an unsafe climate safe not a safe climate unsafe’.
Energy Return on Energy Invested:
https://festkoerper-kernphysik.de/Weissbach_EROI_preprint.pdf
The Dogger Bank windfarms will use 95 turbines to produce 1.2 GW.
On 21 September 2020, it was announced that Dogger Bank A and B will use 190 GE Haliade-X 13 MW offshore wind turbines over both sites, meaning that 95 turbines will be used on each site.[18] The availability of upgraded Haliade-X turbines rated at 13 MW rather than 12 MW means that each site will be capable of generating up to 1.235 GW, for a total of 2.47 GW.
The key here is “will be capable of”. That assumes all are working at 100% capacity 100% of the time. Please point me to an example of an existing installation that demonstrates that this is achievable. To be generous, it may average 20% of plate.
They claim 40 or 50%+ for offshore wind. These large turbines also have a larger capacity factor because they access wind at higher altitude.
However the intermittency of wind is definitely a problem. In the UK the operators have a strike price for the electricity generated, but they have no obligation to keep us supplied on demand.
The strike price should have been for constant supply, having to take into account the cost of energy storage. That would make it considerably more expensive of course.
The fact that wind at altitude blows faster and more reliably than does wind close to the surface, provides a lot of torque that wears out the bearings on the turbine that much faster.
And they have not thought of that or costed it in ?
Yes, and you will have to replace all those 190 windmills every 25 years, or less.
Think of all the resources required to replace windmills every 25 years.
Are there any windmills near where you live, Griff. Can you see one out your front door? Can you hear one? Ever see any dead birds underneath one?
The bottom line is windmills are a deadend. Pursuing this goal will not turn out well. It’s obvious to any non-delusional person.
In the first half of 2021 wind provided 22% of Germany’s electricity compared to 29% in the first half of 2020.
Officials said the reason for the fall was largely due to the lack of wind from January to March.
The UK will be the world test of solar/wind power….nevermind that Germany has already proved it too expensive and unreliable.
Germany has the world’s second most reliable grid (guess who is first).
Germany adds tax to its electricity, over and beyond any green levy, which is what makes it so expensive. I have no idea why.
The green levy component was cut this year.
Germany and the UK have been very lucky.
They better hope they don’t get a really severe winter because it looks like both are right on the edge of not having enough electrical power, which translates to a lot of cold, unhappy people.
I see griff is still trying to pretend that the German grid is independent of the grids in neighboring countries. If it weren’t for the French and Polish grids, the German grid would collapse on a daily basis.
griff
The renewable surcharge on German electricity bills is currently 20% and VAT on fuels is 16%. Last time I looked 20 was more than 16.
Yes they have cut the surcharge starting next year from 6.5 euro cents per kWh to around 3.7 euro cents but the shortfall will come from government funds, ie taxpayers, so who knows what other taxes might go up?
In the UK renewable surcharges are around 23% and amounted to £11.2 billion in 2022/21 and is to rise to £12.5 billion in 2024/25 although VAT on fuel is only 5%.
How do those numbers check out? A new 1.2 GW wind farm every 10 weeks, so 6 GW of nominal capacity added every year. At 33% capacity factor that’s 2 GW added every year for 20 years equals 40 GW. And that about equals UK average electricity demand, with winter evening peak demand rising to about 60 GW.
And don’t forget solar, installed capacity 13.5 GW, but supplying on average just 4% of demand.
So as well as that massive investment in windmills, further investment is required in storage to cope with fluctuations in wind generation from 0-80 GW. That’s a lot of big batteries or pumped hydro, or standby gas/diesel generators, or rationing?
UK current peak is around 48GW – it has been declining for a decade. The actual ‘peak’ after 6 pm is usually met by hydro and pumped hydro.
There are already new pumped hydro schemes in build… the Coire Glas scheme may go ahead – huge new capacity.
“Scheme” is what we would call it in the United States since “scheme” means “scam” here.
Everyone is going to charge their car in the evening. They will want it to be charged up and ready to go the following morning, without messing about unplugging it and dealing with the tangled cables at that time.
Griff also wants all heaters to be replaced by heat pumps, which will also be turning on as people get home.
Yes but I was kind of assuming the heat pumps will have to stay on 24/7 so that the miserable heat output has some chance of keeping us warm! They certainly are not capable of heating your house up from cold quickly.
Below is part of the transcript from promotional videos for Coire Glas spoken by Malcom Turnbull, ex PM of Australia.
Better cross your fingers and hope the project gets the go ahead even though it will cost £1billion plus
Hmmmm…. Blair saying that wind power is no good will get a lot more people believing in wind power…..
I wish I could understand what net Zero is.
You: Drive your petrol car 200km round trip to see your parents and plant 50 trees. (don’t ask where though)
For the uber rich: fly the jet to Davos and buy a 100,000 carbon credits on an arbitrage system.
Time of use Tariff is what is being suggested here to manage demand.
It depends on using 11 million electric vehicle batteries to Power the grid.
Usual pie in the sky stuff, not impressed.
A smart system for charging is quite possible/probable
Right.
We’ll see how the electric vehicles are selling or not selling before too long.
I’m reminded of the stories about people who recently bought electric vehicles and ended up trading them off for fossil-fuel powered vehicles, after discovering the disadvantages of electric vehicles.
If people want an electric vehicle or hybrid, I would recommend buying a Toyota since they still use the safe, non-flammable nickel-metal hydride battery technology.
That way you can park your hybrid in your garage without fear that the car will burn down your house, which is a danger if using lithium batteries.
The Tesla was the biggest seller in the UK in September this year. That is because the income tax advantage if you have one as a company car is massive in comparison to an ICE company car.
According to the International Energy Agency ‘Update on EVs August 23 2021’, sales of EVs in Japan fell by 25% in 2020 and had declined in absolute and relative terms every year since 2017.
Sign of things to come?
“Sign of things to come?”
I wouldn’t be surprised. Fossil-fuel powered cars are just so much more convenient than an electric vehicle.
The only fly in the ointment is the price of fossil fuels, which is artificially high right now. Republicans could probably get that price down substantially, if they had the political power. Get it back down to the price it was when Trump was president by following Trump’s energy policies.
But electric vehicle owners should not get too excited about not having to pay for gasoline, because the price of their electricity may be going higher, too.
While technically possible, it’s absurdly complex and costly and not likely to work anyway.
And what happens if the wind doesn’t blow?
They call out the hamsters.
“And what happens if the wind doesn’t blow?”
Griff starts making excuses.
Griff blames fossil fuel plants for not being able to take up the load.
Is this where we go long on Copper Futures?
Since they are aiming towards a Net Zero that is a marketing term, not descriptive; what do they propose is done with the by-products of plastic, fertilizer, road pavement, bunker fuel and heating oil manufacture? They still need to crack petroleum to get these things, right?
So what about the unavoidable by-products gasoline and diesel? Just dump the stuff into the ocean because oxidizing it will break the goals of operation Net Zero ?
Net Zero is a serious delusion. An impossible dream. But it *is* a means to an end: Control of the population.
Not just copper but:-
Cobalt, nickel, manganese, lithium, graphite, rare earth elements and aluminium. A typical EV requires up to SIX times more mineral input than an ICEV depending on the battery used. (IEA, The Role of Critical Minerals in Clean Energy Transitions, May 2021)
Seems like Boris ought to succeed well before 2050: crash the economy with government over-spending AND replace all heating with electricity that stops when it gets very cold -> everybody freezes to death -> Net Zero accomplished!
How many nuclear power plants could you build spending sixteen billion pounds per year? How many would you have to build to sufficiently supply Great Britain with energy?
Not sure, but it’s a safe bet that however many nuclear plants you built would produce more power at any given time, and would be available more than 95% of the time, instead of less than 35% of the time.
Hinkley Point currently building has risen in cost from £20 billion to £22.9 billion and likely will go up more… but that’s not the whole story – since it has been given a fixed ‘strike price’ for its electricity well above current UK prices, the National audit Office estimates the additional cost to consumers (above the estimated market price of electricity) under the ‘strike price’ will be £50 billion, which “will continue to vary as the outlook for wholesale market prices shifts”.
Capacity 3.2 GW, UK peak demand these days c 48GW – but most of year 35GW.
If you built to 48 or even 35 GW, you’d spend most of the year selling electricity off cheap to France etc. and the cost to consumers and cost of construction and time to build would all be enormous… (because you can’t turn reactors down)
I don’t think we have a price for SMRs yet.
griff, it isn’t just the current capacity that is needed. UK gas demand reaches 300GW in cold weather. That heat has to be replaced. Electricity is only 11-15% of UK energy usage currently, but that has to be increased to almost 100% to meet Net Zero targets.
Replacing all the gas heating with heat pumps and charging up the electric vehicles will increase electricity demand by about 200%. We will need three times the current electricity generation capacity, as a conservative estimate.
Closer to six times, if you include enough wind and solar to charge the batteries that are going to be needed to keep people from dying when the wind and solar aren’t producing.
Well I’ve yet to see an authoritative assessment of how much we will need. You have to bear in mind that, at the point of use, heat pumps are three times as efficient as gas and EV’s are four times as efficient as ICE vehicles.
You can buy a whole lot of gasoline for the price of a battery.
griff and his buddies do everything in their power to make nuclear power costly, then declare that since it is so costly it must not be built.
BTW, Hinckley is still less expensive than a like amount of wind and solar, combined with sufficient batteries to keep people from dying when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining.
griff,
Charge the cost of the strike price to the ridiculous Ed Davy (and Nick Clegg) who let the Chinese run rings round him and came up with the worst possible scheme for Hinckley.
The answer to that is less than one. Civil engineering projects in the UK are very expensive and slow. Many years and millions of expenditure pass by before a single shovel is used.
They aren’t wrong. i remember watching a TV series with Prof Brian Cox (him of D-Ream band fame) on the BBC. He’s a big advocate of global warming catastrophe, but there was a part in the series which did the calculations for everyone on the planet consuming something like 2/3rds of the energy the average person in the US did.
All the calculations showed it was not possible to do so without nuclear fusion becoming a mature technology.
There is simply no way for human beings to live a good standard of life without fossil fuels until an new technology becomes mainstream.
In the mean time we all pay for the renewables boondoggle. The UK National Grid is spending more and more money just to balance the grid in an ever more challenging energy market in order to keep the lights on. The cost has gone from £500m to £2 billion just to administer the electricity grid inside the last 20 years.
At some point the lights will go off if politicians continue down this path.
Reality and Physics are a bitch.
The Tony Blair Institute? I thought he’d been institutionalized long ago.
Wishful thinking???
The only real questions are how and when all this impossibility will manifest itself?
A sage once said “Every social movement ultimately expires from an excess of its own principles”. We are certainly seeing that with radical environmentalism. SO2 and CFCs were easy to get rid of. Fire not so much. Our civilization is still built on and around fire.
SO2 may or may not have been necessary to get rid of, but CFCs never were.
Well, Tony, that’s one way to ensure that there will never be enough power, and no other providers on the system either, unless they park a few Nuclear Powered aircraft carriers in every port to bail you out.
How many and how fast will South Africa need to build wind farms to have reliable power?
South Africa’s Eskom to implement scheduled power cuts as coal units fail (msn.com)
There you go griff. I concede coal doesn’t always provide reliable base load power but I don’t think you can blame coal for that-
‘Not long ago, we buried him’: The human toll of Coober Pedy’s utility burden (msn.com)
There’s a wee problem of affordability particularly in remote areas when some folks want to cherry pick culture when it suits them. Aided and abetted by the usual suspects of course.
A look at the Coober Pedy system:
http://euanmearns.com/the-coober-pedy-hybrid-renewables-plant/
“Harry Cockburn”
That’s an unfortunate name.
Tony Blair is a member of SI (socialistinternational.org):
https://www.socialistinternational.org/congresses/xxi-congress-of-the-socialist-international-paris/
Blair and G W Bush have been good friends for a couple decades.
https://www.newsweek.com/how-tony-blair-relationship-george-bush-fueled-march-baghdad-477985?amp=1
After Saddam was removed, Iraq ‘elected’ Jalal Talabani as president of Iraq. He was a VP of SI:
https://www.socialistinternational.org/councils/athens-2011/list-of-speakers/
The person who led the report “our common future”‘which pushed sustainable development is Gro Harlem Brundtland. She was a VP in SI:
https://www.socialistinternational.org/congresses/xx-congress-of-the-socialist-international-new-york/
The current head of the UN, Antonio Gutteras was president of SI:
https://www.socialistinternational.org/presidium/si-presidium-thanks-antonio-guterres-and-sets-in-motion-procedure-to-elect-new-president/
Billionaire Bloomberg is United Nations special envoy for climate action:
https://www.bloomberg.org/press/u-n-special-envoy-climate-action-michael-bloomberg-answers-secretary-general-antonio-guterres-call-end-new-coal-2020/
We are toast.
And why would a billionaire be working with a socialist when if they we’re in total control, would tax most of his wealth away?
Its ‘all a socialist plot’?
for heaven’s sake…
Americans don’t seem to realise that socialism is an acceptable political belief outside their country. It’s only in the US where “socialist” is an insult.
Socialism is the theory that by taking money from those who work and using it to buy the votes of those who would rather not work is a good way to improve society.
That’s because the Democrat socialists in the U.S. are wanna-be/actual dictators (think Mayor DiBlasio of New York City).
Free people don’t like dictators, whatever they call themselves.
Just listen to what the leaders of the get rid of CO2 movement have been saying.
They have been quite vocal about their desire to use this movement as an excuse to impose more government in general and socialism in particular.
It definitely is a Trojan horse to bring about global socialism (among a number of other leftist goals).
Here’s a Party of European socialists video where they note that Jeffrey Sachs admitted that sustainable development goals are really about social Democratic goals, 1st 45 seconds of the video:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKmEewPcb9g
Sachs ran Columbia’s earth institute of which George Soros was some kind of executive advisor to it for a while.
Hmmm, another billionaire supporting
Socialism that if fully globally implemented, would drain him of his wealth… Or maybe more like global communism where the rich rule the world in their private jets and mega mansions while us subjects ride our bikes to get groceries to bring to our tiny apartments in mega cities?
Kramer, you do realise don’t you, that outside the USA, “socialism” is not a dirty word?
Jesus was a socialist wouldn’t you say?
Only someone who knows nothing about Christianity would say that.
When Jesus told his followers to take care of the poor, he was doing it as personal responsibility. Socialists feel that voting for a politician who promises to use government to steal someone else’s money and then giving that money to the poor, satisfies this requirement.
He overturned the money-changers tables.
Also note that “usury” is a sin in Christianity and is still listed as a criminal offence. Yet our whole capitalist system is built upon it.
If SI ever gets their goal of “nothing
Less than world government” AND then unarms the citizens of all nations, it wouldn’t take long before socialism became a dirty word. They learned from the Berlin Wall that negative press is bad for “the cause.”
I think you guys are misinterpreting this whole thing.
What they really mean by NetZero, is to bring back really bad dial up internet that’s “free”, as long as you can put up with all the ads.
And by the time UK arrives at year twenty the original wind ‘farms’ will have to be replaced – so, like painting the Forth Bridge it will be never ending. And what about the rest of the world if this is what little Britain is going to have to do? WIll there be enough wind left?
“WIll there be enough wind left?”
Will there be enough raw materials left?
So what is the problem? That’s 6GW a year
There is already 30 GW of offshore wind in the build pipeline up to 2027/2030 and 6GW of floating offshore wind and a 10GW floating offshore wind/green hydrogen plan… which is 46GW by around 2027 and plans for later dates not yet published…
Those are allocated sites, published plans, entered into planning process and actually building… very definite construction.
Add on various possible new nuclear including SMRs, new investment in tidal flow turbines, expanding solar, new pumped storage sites, approaching 10GW of HVDC interconnectivity and multiple other projects… Eire is massively expanding offshore wind – I note it has recently been exporting power to UK.
We may even see such projects as HVDC link to Moroccan solar, or building wind farms off Iceland and connecting them to UK grid.
“So what is the problem? That’s 6GW a year
There is already 30 GW of offshore wind in the build pipeline up to 2027/2030 and 6GW of floating offshore wind and a 10GW floating offshore wind/green hydrogen plan… which is 46GW by around 2027 and plans for later dates not yet published…”
Thanks Griff:
I knew the post was bollocks …. err sorry “fake news”.
And was waiting for you to correct, err, the “error”.
Like many posts on here unless the truly knowledgeable turn up to debunk then the lies get unchallenged.
Oh BTW denizens – you’re welcome.
It’s ridiculous to depend on windmills for electricity.
It ought to be plain as day.
Why am I not surprised that Anthony is unaware of all the problems with griff’s proposal? Most of which have already been detailed.
Reading comprehension …
I was (of course) referring to the headline and the lie that it is …
“New 1.2GW Offshore Wind Farm Every 10 Weeks to Hit Net Zero”
So says the guy who recently posted that because the MWP “was not contiguous around the world it should be cancelled” on which logic because the ice sheets in the last Ice Age were not contiguous the Ice Age should be cancelled. The word buffoon comes to mind
“So what is the problem? That’s 6GW a year”
Among many others, the main problem is the wind doesn’t blow all the time.
Wind is not a reliable source. And there is no way to compensate for it presently. Trying to use Big Batteries to compensate is just as delusional as trying to power the world with windmills.
The only real option for Greens is nuclear electricity generation. The sooner they wake up to this, the better off all of us will be.
Many of us don’t like the idea we will be dependent on the goodwill of other countries to supply our electricity.
Multiple problems
1) You are assuming a utilization rate of 100%
2) The best sites are already taken, so that each additional site is going to have a lower utilization rate than the previous ones.
3) By 2047, many of the earliest windmills are going to need replacement, so most of that 6GW is going to be used as replacement instead of new power.
4) You are not counting the cost of batteries needed for when wind and soar fail.
5) You are discounting the cost and inefficiencies of HVDC.
6) You are assuming other countries are going to be willing to cover up their countries in order to provide power to the UK.
The issue is not so much that its impossible – though it obviously is. The issue is that the political establishment can bankrupt the country in the attempt to implement it.
You doubt it? You think that reality will intervene? Don’t bet on it.
How many times have people invaded Russia, despite the fact they had no need to do so and no prospect of success if they tried? I can count four since 1700, and they all ended the same way. Which did not deter the fourth in line.
If you are living in the UK in the country and you have the resources, get ready for winter. Install a decent solid fuel stove with a water heating jacket, lay in a large supply of anthracite, and buy a generator. And maybe install a gas hob for cooking, fed by a gas cylinder, so as not to rely exclusively on electricity for cooking. If you have an oil fired boiler, replace it before 2025 when they are proposed to become unlawful. It will give you a decade or more of warmth, and by the time it needs replacing the mania will likely have burned itself out.
The other thing to consider is a gas fired Aga or equivalent.
If living in the city, as we get to zero gas day, not clear when that will be yet, install a new gas boiler. It too will buy you a decade or so of reliable warmth, but it too will take electricity to run it, which will be a real problem as this gets started. But its still going to be better than air source heat pumps.
The UK political classes are sufficiently in the grip of this madness that they are quite capable of driving the country over the cliff in the pursuit of their nonsensical aims.
Oh, and get ready to vote for Farage. In a few years time, however much you dislike him, he or his successor is going to be your only hope for putting a stop to it and keeping warm.
That’s the desperate, silly thinking that got us Boris.
Better Boris than Corbyn. With Corbyn and McDonnel you’d have seen re-education camps in the Highlands.
This is the problem, we are always choosing between the lesser of two evils. The mad or bad and the slightly less or differently mad or bad.
Considering the corruption and the dithering increasing the death rate I cannot agree.
You can’t vote for anti-semites. Or for terrorist sympathizers. Or for people who are nostalgic for the GDR and former Soviet Union.
And you especially cannot vote for people who are all three!
Boris has many defects. But he had and has one huge positive quality: he was not Corbyn. He never stood at a ceremony for Black September and later declared he was present but not involved. He never associated with IRA terrorists. And he’s free from all the rest of the McDonnell/Corbin/Murray/Milne cabal’s wicked posturings.
He may not even be any good. But however bad he is, he’s not as bad as that lot, who were died in the wool through and through contemptibly bad. Re-read the editorial which the mag that Corbyn was on the Board of put out, after the Brighton bombing. How much closer to justifying it can you get?
Well we no longer have Corbyn and Starmer is kicking out the left (not that I’ll be voting Labour. Or Green)
So how will you be voting? I guess it leaves Liberal, Plaid or SNP?
Brexit got us Boris
Or perhaps Boris got us Brexit?
We haven’t got Brexit. We’re still negotiating (or re-negotiating in the case of the NI protocol)..
Boris has had no successes at all.
When the electorate gives you an 80 seat majority in Westminster, and large swathes of formerly safe seats in the North start voting Conservative out of sheer disgust with what used to be their party, then you know Boris has had a success that eluded most earlier Conservative leaders.
Admittedly Corbyn, McDonnell and Milne were significant allies. Unlike Boris they seem to have aimed to destroy the Labour Party for one or two generations, perhaps for ever. He was only focused on winning an election, but they had wider ambitions. He needed their help, and got it beyond his wildest dreams.
There was also help from Scottish Labour who were in a sort of suicide pact with the British Labour leadership and have managed to take their branch of the party into oblivion. But in the end, it was Boris who delivered the killer victory and it was Boris’ success.
Remember, the country had only one choice to make, it was Boris or Corbyn. You may think that it should never have been presented with such a choice. But it was. This is what the left takeover of the Labour Party wanted. This was where Ed Miliband, the architect of the Climate Change Act, had taken them.
On the day, you checked one box or the other. It might have been possible and not totally irresponsible to hold one’s nose and vote for Brown. But not Corbyn, no, that was a horse of a totally different color.
It appears that Mr. Blair is forgetting the actual utilization rate of wind. Even offshore wind is not above 50% so double all of his numbers and tell people to expect brown-outs when the wind does not blow at the correct speed. Batteries are out of the question.
He’s also completely ignoring the massive increases in electric power production that are going to be needed to cover the left’s other boondoggle programs. Such as making everyone drive electric cars and replacing all heaters with heat pumps.
The UK will not be replacing existing boilers with heat pumps.
I’ve found the report under discussion. I think we should take note of this section (my bold):
An efficient system requires us to move to a market where generation doesn’t just flex to meet demand, but where demand is flexible too. More flexible demand can help deliver a low-cost energy system in two key ways.
First, by reducing the new-build capacity required: if we can cut the level of peak demand (for example, by incentivising people to charge their electric vehicles (EVs) during periods of low demand) then we don’t need to build as much power generation.
And second, by reducing the need for large amounts of additional storage: the use of new technology can hugely increase flexibility – for example, research has shown that 11 million EVs in the UK by 2030 could provide 16GW of daily flexible capacity to the grid, equivalent to around one-third of current peak
In other words, our future consists of being demand-managed. You can’t just switch things on as you desire, you have to look at what it will cost you at that time of day. We also have to allow our EVs to act as a huge share of the energy storage requirement.
Inevitably, heating during cold weather is going to be a rich man’s privilege!
you never buy stuff when its on special offer?
Millions already have cheap rate tariffs at certain times of day.
There are even companies which allow you to top up your home battery when rates are cheap
It’s going to get a lot worse than that griff. The next generation of smart meters will be able to turn off your heating or your car charger.
Also, I doubt there is going to be a period of low demand. People will want to charge their vehicles overnight if they can’t do it earlier in the evening. Heat pumps will have to operate for longer periods to supply hot water and keep the house warm, because they have a relatively low output compared to a modern gas boiler.
Electricity demand will be high at all times. There will be times of the day when you cannot switch things on as you please. You have to be rationed at these times.
You’ve got to laugh at the idea there will be 11m EVs in the UK by 2030. There were, according to the IEA only 10.2m in the world at the end of 2020 and in a report in May 2021 the IEA said it expected there to be c. 72m worldwide by 2040.
There are currently about 660,000 plug in cars in the UK of which only half are BHEVs.
Building and installing a wind turbine creates CO2. Only after the turbine has been running for many years without fail does it actually start to net reduce CO2. And then the turbine must keep running for double that time to make its replacement turbine. And then it must keep running for triple that time to slowly increase the number of turbines. It is not enough to build wind turbines to reduce fossil fuel power plants. You need wind turbines to reduce the CO2 from building wind turbines.
It is not enough to build wind turbines to reduce fossil fuel power plants. You need to build wind turbines to reduce the CO2 from building wind turbines.
A good friend remarked the other day that EVs would provide the grid storage. And you might well be forced to or go without.
Then we did the costs. A $20 thousand dollar battery in its lifetime will hold about $20 thousand in electricity before it needs to be replaced.
So if the power company is using your EV for storage you are getting a very bad deal. The $10 in power the utility company sold your neighbor cost you $10 of EV battery life.
That’s very interesting if true. How many charge/discharge cycles have you assumed for your battery life?
Bear in mind EV users are reporting much longer battery lives than the warranty says. They are reporting experiences like 100,000 miles with about 1% loss of capacity.
Every diatribe written about low carbon energy which doesn’t feature nuclear power is an exercise in self-defeating futility.
Blair is presumably stupid enough to be anti-nuclear.
So blocking Highs/Lows don’t exist in their little world?
Seeing his picture and/or Bill Clinton’s always makes me feel unwell (putting it nicely)
James Bull