From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
A good round up by Matt Ridley:
Take a wild guess at how much of the UK’s total primary demand for energy was supplied by wind power in 2020.
Half? 30 per cent? No, in fact, it was less than 4 per cent.
That’s right, all those vast wind farms in the North Sea, or disfiguring the hills of Wales and Scotland, give us little more than one-thirtieth of the energy we need to light and heat our homes, power our businesses or move our cars and trains.
Just think what this country and its seas would look like if we relied on wind for one-third or half of our energy needs.
Last week, Government ministers were considering lowering people’s energy bills if they live close to onshore wind turbines.
They’re also considering relaxing the rules so that onshore wind farms no longer need the backing of local communities and councils in order to get planning permission.
This will give wind farms an easier ride through the planning process than new housing — or shale gas drilling sites.
More importantly, it means further privileging an industry that has cost a fortune, wrecked green and pleasant landscapes and made us dependent on the weather for our energy needs — and thus more wedded to natural gas as a back-up.
The wind industry has already been fattened on subsidies of more than £6billion a year (paid for out of green levies on your electricity bills), it has privileged access to the grid and is paid extra compensation when the wind blows too strongly and the grid cannot cope with the energy output.
Full story here.
Green prayer wheels.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
First chuckle of my day (-:
Odes to Don Quixote…
Shooting a rifle bullet into a blade with a tip ravelling at 100 mph would do an awful lot of damage but would be fun.
Even standing underneath it with a bow and arrow even it would be a 50 metre vertical shot . Come on Robin Hood These monstrosities rob from the poor and give to the rich!
Many people consider that a prayer is good for their wellbeing.
Study published in the Nature
Effects of low-frequency noise from wind turbines on heart rate variability in healthy individuals
concludes
Wind turbines generate low-frequency noise (LFN, 20–200 Hz), which poses health risks to nearby residents.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-97107-8
There is 50 years or more of data that shows that still lower frequencies, which wind turbines produce in large quantities, do permanent dayage to living tissures.
Please take a look at this livestream of a presentation by Dr. Mariana Alves-Pereira, who was brought from Portugal to Ontario by Professor Richard Mann in 2019. This event took place at the University of Waterloo.
https://livestream.com/itmsstudio/events/8781285/videos/196181579
People need to know about the cumulative and permanent damage from LFN.
The wind farms in Ontario are the Potemkin power plants built in honour of Kathleen the Great.
The other side of the coin is electrical demand. Is that increasing from other policy actions against fossil fuels? I suppose the answer would need to be disaggregated among sectors.
In 2019, wind generation accounted for 19% of UK’s electrical power. Are you suggesting that demand increase explains the difference? Or might be folks at the Mail just made up their 4% number?
Where is the basis for the 19% claim? Is that “nameplate rating,” the capacity of the turbines if the wind is blowing exactly right? We know that the wind seldom does what we want it to, so those turbines, while they might be turning, can’t generate the necessary power to meet their ratings. Another bogus number often used is the “average” production, as if average will meet the extremes of hot and cold weather. Just try wading across a lake that has an average depth of four feet and see how far you get.
Nope, not capacity. Actual electricity generated.Total generated in 2019 was about 65 TWh. Demand was 340 TWh. This info is readily available. Where did the Mail get it’s 2020 data? I have not yet been able to find data more recent than 2019.
The 4% number is correct. It is relative to PRIMARY ENERGY, which is relevant if you think that your net zero solution will see only EVs on the roads and electric heat pumps in place of gas boilers (furnaces for our US friends).
Electric power is 40 GW
Total power from oil gas coal nuclear and renewable comes to about 200 GW
So 4’% is about right
That is nameplate, not actually generated energy.
Someone, tallied up the nameplate figures and pronounced that as generated. A common issue with MSM and activists.
Most certainly has to be. With the war on reasonably priced and reliable energy, some are choosing electric heat pumps and autos, among other things, believing the propaganda that they are saving the planet.
From wooden and stone idols to steel and concrete idols with spinning arms.
When George Orwell wrote “Animal Farm” he chose the windmill
to represent the boondoggles that oppressive governments promote
in order to create an appearance of progress.
Not teh only thing that Orwell got right in the doublethinkland that we have become under various big brothers on both left and right. What are we doing for hate week
MOFA
Make Orwell Fiction Again
“When George Orwell wrote “Animal Farm” he chose the windmill
to represent the boondoggles that oppressive governments promote….”
*************
Thanks for sharing this Steve. I of course have been a big believer in using “Nineteen Eighty Four” to juxtapose the novel with the real world today, but I wasn’t much familiar with “Animal Farm”.
Now I guess I will have to read “Animal Farm” as well.
Absolutely! Must read! You can’t miss the origin of “…some are just more equal than others.”
Explained masks perfectly
Yep, then you’ll see you are surrounded by people who think they are, or who have the goal of being an Animal Farm pig.
Strange stuff.
Here’s how old I am –
“Animal Farm” was required reading in our school curriculum in about 1960.
Can anyone imagine that being the case today?
Me too.
I read it around that time. I don’t remember if it was required or not.
I suspect in schools it’s gone the way of “The Little Red Hen”.
Mine too, about 10 years later.
There is still an animated version of Animal Farm (about an hour long) out there.
But at the end it has the animals rising up again. That didn’t happen in the book.
In the real world, if the taxpayer-funded subsidies were ended today, all sources of energy were put on a free market footing existing on how well they provided energy, the windmills and solar would fail marvelously. As they should. And will, if the citizens ever learn to control their elected officials. “By any means necessary” can work just not for the left but the right as well. Just needs the will of the people to say “enough is enough”. Just sayin’.
But it would bring down the donor network too.
Just needs the will of the people to say “enough is enough”.
Do you support or oppose the use of renewable energy for providing our electricity, fuel and heat?
Levels of support for renewable energy for electricity, heat and fuel in the United Kingdom have remained relatively unchanged since 2012. In 2012, 79 percent of respondents reported being supportive of the use of renewable energy, while five percent were opposed. This figure did not change as of March 2021.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/425000/united-kingdom-uk-attitudes-towards-renewables/#:~:text=Levels%20of%20support%20for%20renewable,change%20as%20of%20March%202021.
I’m afraid the people of the UK have been thoroughly brainwashed by the constant barrage of misinformation and disinformation from the government and the MSM about renewable energy and the need to cut emissions and save the planet.
Electricity consumption by the UK is about 330 TWh per annum. Wind and solar provide about 23% of that need.
Total energy consumption by the UK is about 1650 TWh per annum. Wind and solar provide about 4.6% of that need.
So we just need to ramp up renewable energy by about 2000%. Easy peasy.
Responses in surveys depend greatly on how the question is phrased. If you ask someone whether they favor a “green energy” push without mentioning any cost to them, it’s easy for them to say yes. Put in some numbers about the additional cost, and you will see a very different response.
Renewable drivers… Intermittent converters, green blight, ecological hazard, disposable waste, shared/shifted responsibility from recovery to reclamation. The green novelty of Green technology is the laundered, redistributive green backs, backed by a net zero effect hypothesis that lacks skill even in a modeled space.
I suspect a lot of people in the UK will be having second thoughts about “Green” energy now the bills are coming in.
The response predicted by rational people for decades, Graemethecat. The Iron Law of Politics always wins: Shove at people’s wellbeing, they will shove back, no matter how noble you think you are.
Revjay4 says “In the real world, if the taxpayer-funded subsidies were ended today, all sources of energy were put on a free market footing existing on how well they provided energy, the windmills and solar would fail marvelously.” What he said is absolutely true. No talk no bargaining no surveys necessary, the customers would know all they need to know after their first bill arrived.
How can continuing subsidies be justified going forward, knowing what we now know about industrial scale wind and especially with the damage to economies globally from two years of covid restrictions?
No ‘justification’ required when pols are doing something that “feels good”. (keep that $$ coming my way, though… it makes me ‘feel’ better.
Currently, today in the UK, we are generating less than1.5 GW from wind, set against a demand of over 37 gig. For the last week wind has averaged just 1.0 GW due to low winds over Europe currently
Increase our wind resource? Sure, the Government has today announced plans to increase our current wind capacity from 26 GW currently to 80 GW by 2035. A massive and expensive undertaking that will inevitably run into problems as people object locally. However, assuming we actually manage it what will 80 GW be producing if winds are similar to the last week, when current wind capacity is currently producing only 1 GW ?
That would be about 3 GW at best, as against a demand of 37 GW. However, demand won’t be 37 GW in 2035 it will be massively higher as EV’s take up load and the Government intend to get us to switch from gas to electricity for our heating. Gas boilers in new properties to be banned soon.
How do you keep the lights on?
I know you mean “keep the lights on” figuratively. But with smart meters in every home the literal lights will be the last thing they switch off—they use relatively little power. It will be your car charger, your cooker, your clothes-dryer, and your other appliances they will shut down when and for as long as they can’t meet demand.
For any of you who think I might be slightly hysterical, Dale Vince of EcoTricity told the nation, on BBC Radio 4 at 7:10am on October 8th, using smart meters “we can turn down demand”. (The interviewer seemed not to understand what he’d just been told and continued serenely on.)
Controlled rolling blackouts, instead of whole neighborhoods it will be individual devices in homes they turn off
To bad for you if it’s something you need at that moment.
And it can only be shut down if it’s on, meaning you are using it.
So it will always be something you need at that moment.
And people aren’t smart enough to understand what they are being told as you point out
When I was an Electric System Planning Engineer (followed by supervisory and managerial work in the field) I came to the conclusion that “Demand Side Management” in Resource Plans was nothing more than “screw the customer for political reasons.” Nothing has changed during the intervening decades.
More and more complicated, less and less reliable.
He probably did understand. He didn’t want his listeners to understand.
That is the entire statement. Not the actual ability for smart meters to leave on lightly loaded circuits while shutting off heavy load circuits?
Even today, regular electronics do not handle running on lower voltage/amperage/frequency. People might notice their expensive motors lugging and overheating until they fry.
Businesses and homes have their meter between the circuit boxes and the grid.
Inside the buildings, circuit boxes split the power into main circuits.
Reduce the demand?
Everything on that line connection to the grid, is not controlled by “smart meters”. All they can actually reduce is the power to the circuit boxes.
What Covid-19 proved to governments, mandated closures will reduce demand and likely is what they intend.
Hi
No, each appliance will come from the factory with built in comms and control. It’s the future mate. IOT.
What might happen and what is happening are two very different things. The current crop of smart meters can at best, shut off individual houses. And I’m not intending to participate in the Idiocy of Things, thanks anyway. I’ve no doubt there will develop quite a cottage industry of folks offering to lobotomize any IoT device for a reasonable fee.
Your supposition is naive I am afraid. Investigate it yourself. Search terms are “demand side response”, “DSR”, “auxiliary load control”, and “HAN connected auxiliary load control”.
“at best” is completely correct.
When they build wind turbines, the build in the best sites first, so as they continue to build out, they must necessarily put subsequent turbines in less ideal locations. Beyond that, due to shadowing, each new turbine steals a little bit of power from the existing turbines in the same region. To get 3 times the power, you are going to need more than 3 times as many turbines.
Three times as many wind turbines produce how much more power when the wind isn’t blowing?
Zero times zero equals zero.
Or is it: three times zero equals zero.
Zero times zero would be ideal.
Unfortunately there would be 3 times the number of turbines, so the later would be correct.
Mr. W: Ordinarily, zero times zero must equal zero, but zero times zero can yield a negative result if you invest in a wind turbine.
When the wind isn’t blowing the wind turbines use energy to keep them turning, so that the main shift doesn’t get bent by having the total weight of the sails in one direction.
The real problem becomes that so much of the output has to be curtailed uselessly, because storage is totally uneconomic. I took a look at what would have happened hour by hour in the UK in December if we’d had quadruple the offshore wind capacity. You can see that at times of high wind and low demand there’s lots of curtailment, yet when the wind doesn’t blow you need almost the same level of gas backup as currently. Curtailment pushes up the cost of the useful MWh, which have ti earn sufficient revenue to pay for the wind farm. This is a much bigger effect than wind shadowing, although already there are legal cases between neighbouring wind farms about that.
The evil in all of it is that if the UK government gets its way, everyone with an EV will also be subjected to regulation at their home charging ports. So, if the grid can’t support, say, 80 GW of demand, the government can decide to cut it back by reducing or stopping charging at individual homes.
How long before every citizen must have a stationary pedal bike generator and the government forces citizens to generate power for the grid? (Ok, slightly sarcastic but with the clown world we live in I do not exclude the possibility.)
For the children, of course.
Dunno about pedal generators but it seems likely that backyard generators will become a thing in PM Boris Johnson’s “Saudi Arabia of Wind”.
Is the UK’s Prime Minister a true believer or an opportunist hobby horse wrangler?
iirc – the BBC tried to power a TV program with pedal generators a few years ago – without a rehearsal – it was a shambles.
The boobs in our public sector bureaucracy are trying something similar on a much grander scale….
I wouldn’t expect generators to be legal anymore at some point in the future, hence pedal generators.
I note another poster wrote : “Amusingly coal is currently producing more electricity (1.96GW) than the wind.”
You (plural) mean it’s worse than the “dip” last December ? … Shirley not ???
Then again, it’s been almost 3 weeks since I last updated my spreadsheet …
.
.
.
For once “worse than we thought” is an appropriate phrase !
Now the month of March is over, an updated version of the second half of the above graph.
As I write, wind in the UK is generating 1.26GW.
Demand is 37.65GW.
Amusingly coal is currently producing more electricity (1.96GW) than the wind.
The cost of heating oil induced me to turn off the central heating two weeks ago. I am wearing so many layers the dog thinks we’re going for a walk and won’t leave me alone.
Nick Stokes puts an extra blanket on maybe try that.
Wouldn’t it be nice if the build back better people were not in charge?
Energy poverty.
Wind “Turbines” are arguably the most inefficient solution to our energy crisis
_________________________________________________________
Wind mills are a 14th century solution to a 21st century non-problem.
To keep wind power in their ideal Net-Zero Nirvana, the Greens will have to
ignore all the Non-Zero pollution & Non-Zero dead birds it will cause.
An alternate to California’s proposed 4.2 GW offshore wind project:
4.2 GWs = roughly 680 6MW turbines or 252 17MW turbines
· Miles offshore with expensive undersea power network
· No thermal use for industry
· Radar Interference is a security threat
· Intermittent low-density Energy
vs
21 Seaborg 200 MW CMSR power barges or 5 GW CMSR power barges
· Float them into any sea or river port near the local grid
· 24-year return to the shipyard for recycling
· Thermal Industrial and Desalination use
· The least impacting energy source on nature
· 24/7/365 Energy inexpensive as Coal
https://businessdevelopmentinternational.biz/seaborg-co/
The VCEA also stipulates that “not less than 5,200 megawatts” (rated capacity) of that “clean, renewable” power must come from offshore wind. That translates into 370 14-MW turbines, 430 12-MW turbines or 865 6-MW turbines off the Virginia coast. Construction of the first 180 has already hit cost overruns and could reach $10 billion.
https://heartlanddailynews.com/2021/12/virginia-offshore-wind-project-hit-by-massive-cost-overruns/
The gravy train will derail soon. Maybe another 2 to3 years. Costs can only be hidden for so long. High power prices. High transmission costs. High subsidies. High taxes. Big losses by your super funds.
Greta and various activists are just bullying tactics to maintain momentum. Anyone who willingly met Greta is a partner in the scam. Also anyone who did not arrest road-blockers.
I would say remember their names, but they will all retire to the tropics.
Let’s hope you’re right!
Too good not to post even if it has been posted before
The world owes the UK a big thank you for conducting this Great Green Experiment. However, Elon Musk has urged the USA to double electricity output because of those…you know…EVs. Therefore, remember to increase output and not just replace fossil fuels.
“Electrification” is understood to mean 2.5-3x increase of load in the average advanced western country.
So Germany 70GW grid already has double the per capita generation we have in Alberta, and they talk of doubling it in order to allow green energy 100% of the time, so 4x. Which of course is still a lie
But then if you triple the load, 3×4 is 12x installed generation of today
So the 225GW installed base needs to go to 2700GW, but of course that will mean nothing without magic batteries, another couple hundred $trillion.
Send in the clowns/Trudeau
Net zero means zero anything
I’m certain someone will come up with some accounting sleight of hand and other tricks that “prove” Net-Zero really works.
Net zero refer to how many humans left after complete implementation of green energy policy
It’s the (subsidy and advocacy) thought that counts. Outcomes are another matter.
So the next question is how much has the UK spent on wind energy?
And how much of that is sitting as borrowings of wind farms waiting for interest rates to rise?
The new dark Satanic mills…
How about the worship of Matt Ridley? 😉
Renewables generator and energy retailer Octopus are currently running an ad campaign calling for more onshore wind in the UK. Here’s a sample:
It’s a fraud, because in reality wind has done nothing to reduce the use of gas for electricity generation in the UK as this chart show: Only switching to coal in the aftermath of Fukushima saw a reduction in gas generation. Wind has driven out baseload coal and nuclear, not gas.
Not true any more about the wind power being less than 4%
Looking at May 2021 until March 2022 (The only data I could be bothered down loading from grid watch) the figures are
CCGT 39%
Nuclear 17%
Wind 21%
Solar 4%
It should also be remembered that new nuclear in the UK has a guaranteed index linked price of $135/MWh !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Try READING what Matt Ridley wrote
Four percent of of total PRIMARY DEMAND FOR ENERGY was supplied by wind power
Well that’s stupid isn’t it!!!
You have not added in the solar irradiance over the uk This is energy used of courseUK area is 242495 sq km
solar irradiance is say 100 watts/sq metre average over a day+night+year
so that means the total energy is 212e12 kwh
212,000,000GWh
So if you are going to take primary demand then i think you’ll find the UK has insignificant energy requirements. (solar must be a primary demand – remove it and freeze!!!!!!)
Misleading stuff from the man with family coal interests…
UK got 24.8 percent of its electricity from windpower in 2020 – the usual trick of concentrating on total energy, when electricity supply is the main focus of UK wind…
Nice misdirection, Griff. Net Zero envisions the bulk of all energy needs being met by electricity.
Since everything is supposed to be electrified it is entirely appropriate to consider overall energy demand. Or are you planning not to supply anything to EVs and heat pumps?
Well, there’s reading, and then there’s comprehension.
AGW / Renewables acolytes like Griff (I like to call them “Kool-Aiders”) are seriously deficient in both skills.
And let’s not even mention numeracy.
You seem to have no ability to think logically.
The country doesn’t run because of average electricity generation, it runs because of its ability to meet overall average and peak demand.
It doesn’t matter that wind produces 20% over a year (wind produced 19.5% of overall demand last year not 24.8), its what do you do when wind produces less than 4% of demand for more than seven consecutive days as is happening right now.
Well Griff what do you do? Build three times more wind resource by 2035 as the Government has announced?
Well that would have produced about 10% of current demand and way less than that of 2035 demand.
What about the other 90+% Griff? Be specific.
Last year you were claiming that UK was getting 40% of it’s power from wind.
If your numbers keep shrinking at this rate, in a year or two you will be close to the truth.
Griff with a retard moment again .. try reading and engage your brain the figure is correct.
The usual trick of only looking at “long-term” (annual) averages while completely ignoring the day-to-day (weather) fluctuations.
Ever heard of the terms “grid stabilisation” and “dispatchable electricity sources” ?
And no one, not a single family anywhere, has “wind interests”. Or, if any do, Every! Last! One! of them studiously does nothing to advance wind.
Or something.
UK wind is now starting to come in subsidy free:
‘Crossdykes, inaugurated in October 2021, is said to be the UK’s largest fully subsidy-free wind farm. It is owned by Muirhall Energy with 5% of the project held by local communities. Last year, Crossdykes became the first subsidy-free wind farm to enter the energy balancing market and capacity market.’
Griff, I’m looking without success to find the exact contractual terms which Crossdykes has entered into.
To be subsidy free it must trade on exactly the same basis as a conventional power station. That is, no Contracts for Difference. No renewables obligation. No payment to stop generating in over peak periods.
Is this really true?
I don’t believe it will be, because I don’t believe any company in its right mind would sign up to a supply as intermittent as this will be, when they are obliged to supply constant demand. It is an extreme version of borrowing short and lending long, its a recipe for disaster.
But if you have a link for the contractual terms and conditions, post it. Lets see it.
Maybe Paul Homewood, if he is reading, could offer a view?
As far as I can detect, it has signed up with Limejump which now appears to be owned by Shell, so there is financial muscle if Limejump fail. Limejump are aggregators of novel balancing services from DSR, smaller batteries and small generators etc. so the exposure will be at the portfolio level, and in any case it’s only a toy amount that is actually involved in the Balancing Mechanism. I can find no operational data on the windfarm itself (it’s CRDEW-1 and -2 and supposedly Transmission connected T_ prefix).
I can imagine that given the backing a decision to play the markets has been taken – and at the moment those would be quite lucrative. They will presumably be trying for double dipping on constraint payments as well as benefiting from current high market prices most of the time that they’re generating. Whether it stands up in more normal times is a different question.
It turns out that out of its 46MW nominal capacity just 2MW is registered to the balancing mechanism. Whoop!
Also, you haven’t answered the basic objection to wind and solar in the context of the Net Zero proposals. Its the same objection as was raised by Menton in the piece near this one.
It is, how much storage do you need to provide an acceptable level of service, given the intermittency of both wind and solar.
If you cannot refute Menton’s basic arithmetic, you have no case.
The funny part of Crossdykes is it cost $88.32M to build and makes $2.2M a year … the turbines aren’t going to last long enough to ever reach payback 🙂
A real success story for renewables … LOL.
Is the same financial data available for other wind farms?
“UK wind is now starting to come in subsidy free”
The UK government has just reinstated subsidies for wind and solar!! because nobody is building without them.
Nobody cares about ONE small poxy bird chopping farm that has once again blighted a Scottish landscape with concrete and metal.
Soooo greeen….
In 1,000 years, the remnants of those wind towers will be seen as tributes to Gaia, a latter day version of Stonehenge.
Unless the Russians take them down first.
So little air, so little heat, so little energy, and so much money.
That 4% is the low hanging fruit.
It is impossible to get penetration of wind and solar above their capacity factors without massive storage and/or high power interconnectors with large networks that are prepared to accept the intermittency. Norway is probably prepared to use random power if paid well enough. That saves perched storage for their hydropower.
Ridley is always worth listening to.
It was never about providing a solution … only ever about snouts in the trough.
4% of total energy is meaningless . what % of electricity generation is the question .
If windpower worked so well, why does Germany need Russian natural gas? Because we all know biblical era energy technologies are not reliable, efficient or scalable.