From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
London: 9 July 2024
Labour’s wind expansion will be ‘astonishingly wasteful’
Net Zero Watch says that Labour’s plans for a vast expansion of the windfarm fleet will be highly wasteful. This is because, at times when the wind is blowing strongly, too much power will be produced, and windfarms will be forced to switch off. They will therefore need to earn their income at other times, and will have to increase their prices to cover their costs.
The UK wholesale market is seeing a rapidly rising number of periods of overproduction, and this is thought to be the main reason that offshore windfarms demanded, and received, a 60% price increase in the renewables auctions.
Net Zero Watch director Andrew Montford said:
We have no economic means to store surplus electricity on the necessary scale, so Labour’s plans will simply drive up costs. Millions of megawatt hours of potential production are going to be thrown away. It’s astonishingly wasteful and will add billions of pounds to consumer bills.
1. Net Zero Watch has estimated that a fourfold expansion of wind power would lead to overproduction of around 30 terawatt hours of electricity each year.
2. Windfarms’ annual costs are almost all incurred regardless of their output, so a reduction in output means a higher price must be charged on each unit. The overproduction that Labour’s expansion of wind power would cause would mean that windfarms would have to switch off much more often. The unit cost of wind power would therefore rise, from around £100 to around £150 per megawatt hour.
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Ed Miliband is in charge of the Labour party’s net zero plans. Unfortunately, he is an innumerate imbecile. We are doomed.
Ed
MilibandMoribund is in charge of the Labour party’s net zero plans.I prefer the moniker Ed Millivolt: He doesn’t have much potential.
Hahaha … best vomment ever!
He has trouble with the working class bacon sandwich
How dare you imply that Ed Miliband is out of touch with the working class. After all, he only uses the smaller of his two kitchens.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/mar/13/ed-miliband-two-kitchens-use-smaller-one
So he says…
I think for his socialist soirees he needs the bigger kitchen
He eats bacon? Oh the methane criminal is caught!
Milliband has no idea what the effect of Net Zero is. IE Povery with NO pluses.
Miliband’s announcement reads like a suicide note.
More like an assisted dying attempt!
Labour’s energy policies – UNhinged as they are – are just one facet of this new administation’s delusional thinking.
In a normal world a thumping Parliamentary majority of 174 seats should be enough to put a government together. After all, the candidates were carefully selected, right? But for the son of the factory owner it isn’t.
If, like me, you thought it was [anti-democratically] bad when Sunak appointed Cameron as a peer – effectively as PM for foreign affairs – then think again. Starmer is on a roll. Within a couple of days we got:
Richard Hermer KC, a human-rights lawyer and expert in international law gets a life peerage so that he can serve as attorney general. [Tough titty, Emily Thornberry – aka Lady Nugee)
James Timpson, CEO of key-cutting and shoe-repair chain Timpson. He will be a prisons minister, also via a seat in the Lords.
Patrick Vallance. Starmer is rewarding Vallance – one of the chief architects of the Covid-19 lockdowns – with a peerage and a job as science minister.
Jacqui Smith (she who ensured grooming was swept under the carpet for years and had us paying for her husband’s porn habit on expenses) Starmer is also giving her a life peerage in order to smuggle her into government.
If, now like Cameron, they aren’t in government, members of the house of Lords can claim an attendance allowance of £323 for each day that they attend the House and do parliamentary work.
To quote Troy Tempest: Anything can happen in the next half hour. And they’re definitely going to need a bigger house of Lords.
Has anybody seen the Edstone? He seems to be missing in action.
Unfortunately, Patrick Vallance, our new science minister, is a fanatical climate alarmist. So we can expect even more ridiculous climate policies than before.
https://news.sky.com/story/cop26-chief-scientific-adviser-sir-patrick-vallance-says-15c-warming-limit-is-crucial-and-non-negotiable-12464511
Oh he is 100% on board with all the authoritarian policy stuff – backed by [his] science, of course.
AND he has taken Starke the ex head of the Climate Clowns Committee on board to “drive net zero”.
The lunatics have certainly taken over the asylum now!
Indeed he has
Some may not be familiar with the Edstone. A tablet of stone with his pledges as Labour leader carved into it. The plan was to put it in Downing Street if he won the election – which he didn’t.
Whatever happened to the Edstone?
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/ed-miliband-stone-election-pledges-b2088683.html
Australia is leading the way on environmental destruction by Industrial Wind Factories.
That’s sad.
Thanks for sharing this video Ben. The hypocrisy of claiming wind and solar are “green energy” when they are doing this to your country’s wild lands almost boggles the mind.
More like Gangrene energy.
goodness gracious that is staggering! Imagine how this will create many more millionaires and billionaires all in the name of something that is based upon a huge lie. The icing on the big grift cake is that it is subsidized by millions if not billions of people who, if they actually bothered to try and understand what is going on, would see the lie like the nose on their face.
“It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.”Tom Sawyer
Bloomberg estimates $US200 trillion to stop warming by 2050.
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-07-05/-200-trillion-is-needed-to-stop-global-warming-that-s-a-bargain
There are about 2 billion households so that is about $100,000 per household.
At least 90 percent of the household can’t afford anything additional, so the others in the developed world will have to make up the difference.
That makes the cost around $1 million per household in the developed world.
Almost all households would rather have $1 million in the bank and a degree or two of warming.
Bloomberg’s investors want $275 trillion spent.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-21/investors-call-for-policy-unleashing-275-trillion-for-net-zero
The estimate needs to be recalculated, as the value of the dollar has gone down, and the offshore wind folks have jacked up the price by 60% in the latest auctions.
These people are insane.
And how will all these new roads be constructed? Good old eevil diesel.
Yes, they are insane.
Certainly going to push up the wind-turbine manufacturing in China.
And where is all the cement to make the foundations going to be made?
Wonder if they try to stop this Hinkley point c debacle – although I guess most of the damage is already done. But at least the next few years we should see more sane energy policies in the UK and France. None of that SMR nonsense now that EDF and NuScale showed that it’s a lot of empty promises and a waste of taxpayer money.
Why are you interested in Hinkley? Aren’t you somewhere in Europe seeking out you car free utopia? Remeber you can choose from…
Pontevedra, Spain; Venice, Italy; Groningen, Netherlands; Ghent, Belgium; Copenhagen, Denmark; Giethoorn, Netherlands; Oslo, Norway; Hydra, Greece; Zermatt, Switzerland; Vauban/Freiburg, Germany
You won’t see a sane policy in the UK before 2029
“I guess most of the damage is already done.”
Yep, you elected Labour.
Probably no coming back from that. !
He isn’t in the UK….
Didn’t Luser say he was in Northern Ireland… part of the UK.
They will directly suffer the consequences too.
You can bet it would have voted Labour, or worse, if it was old enough to vote.
He keeps linking to reneweconomy articles, so I reckon zey are in Oz.
Or maybe a Kiwi who sings their national anthem –
“I Still Call Australia Home”
He claimed to be somewhere in the EU
EVERY single wind turbine has been a waste of money… and again in 10-15 years.
Here’s a quarter, kid, go buy yourself an education.
You seem to be blessed with the same tallents as Ed Milliband. (See above)
“we should see more sane energy policies in the UK”
You will not see anything even remotely “sane” happening in the UK over the next 5 years…
… unless you think destroying the whole country is “sane”
Myusername,
Some rather sweeping statements, I would like to see your reasons for them?
Especially why you think there will be sane energy policy in the U.K. as that is so far removed from all evidence of their intent??
Ed Milliband is not a scientist. He, like most of the rest of the cabinet has no idea how to assess climate change and in particular the effect of green house gases. Particularly as clouds and water vapour are far more plentiful than poor old innocent and essential carbon dioxide
Perhaps the only gas he understand is the gas from having too many baked beans for supper?
Sean,
worse he and I must assume his advisors simply do not have a clue about electrical genertaion and distribution, nor the economics of his ‘cheap’ wind!
These doomsters are all barking mad-
(110) Proposed renewable energy projects across Queensland. – YouTube
We need nukes if they can’t handle coal gas and oil.
Story tip.
A man superimposed in front of a turbine. Or, an idiot living in a fairy tale.
hmmmm…. let’s see- you over produce something and get rewarded with a price increase….. hmmmm
I can only wonder why the citizens of the UK haven’t seen the connection between their much higher electricity costs and inflation- with these crazy green policies.
The British media has suppressed any discussion of the link between renewables and higher electricity prices. In fact, they keep claiming that renewable energy is cheaper than gas. So the majority of British people think renewable energy is cheap. However, this delusion will become increasingly difficult to maintain over the next 5 years if the Labour party actually goes ahead with its insane drive to build many more bird choppers. The Labour party is currently claiming that all of these wind farms will actually cut electricity prices. When this doesn’t happen, I wonder what they will claim next?
sure, the wind is free! /s
They’re on a roll – another bottom feeder, Chris Stark (staring mad) is going to be in charge of Mission Control
That should help him skim a few more million from the taxpayers.
It also shows how detached Moribund is – Years of underinvestment has left our country suffering energy insecurity, with working people paying the price through their energy bills and a cost-of-living crisis – is that misinformation on a government website?
At least the last person leaving the country won’t have to turn off the lights ……
But, But, But, What about using all that “Excess” energy to produce Hydrogen and then E-Fuels. Isn’t that the way to absorb all that unused energy? NO. Absolutely stupid idea. There is no way intermittent energy, especially “Peak” power, will be useable in processes that require absolutely reliable energy inputs. It is pure fantasy to think that this will work.
Using explosive hydrogen sounds like a really bad idea. Plus, it burns with an invisible flame if it doesn’t explode. We have enough trouble with slow burning wood fires
It’s a farce. Should politicians take a psychological test? Save the planet, control the climate, by destroying the environment. The resources wasted on what you don’t need. Maybe everyone should buy 10 EV’s and let 9 rot instead of buying 1 petrol car. If 1 EV is green than buying 10 makes you super duper green. If I was a tax payer I would rather quit my job and live on the streets than paying 1 more $€£ taxes.
Well, maybe a neurological test. Wouldn’t it be a good idea to require all persons seeking public office, and all those seeking appointments in Government, to take, and pass, both a literacy test and a numeracy test?
I hate those bird choppers, and that’s before you have to bury all the old blades.Wasteful is an understatement!
And how much CO2 and methane is generated while those innocent birds decay?
The UK is struggling to over take Germany as having the worst grid system prices. My understanding is UK over production is costing about 1billion pounds per year, whereas Germany is approaching 1 billion Euro’s per month.
copy/paste
Germany
The difference between wholesale power prices and the guaranteed remuneration level used to be funded by power customers through the so-called renewables surcharge on their power bill, but the government changed the funding mechanism in 2022 to direct state support to reduce energy costs for households and other electricity consumers. The funds generated through Germany’s national carbon pricing system on heating and transport are one of the sources of income used to finance renewables.
The government so far planned with about 10.6 billion euros in renewable power support costs which, according to the finance ministry, was the expected amount based on higher power prices in autumn 2023, before the 2024 budget was calculated. However, this sum has almost been used up in the first six months of the year, the article said.
Take your $1000 per Kw Honda generator in a garden shed….and convert it to open ocean 24/7 wave and storm-proof-power-except-when-the-wind-doesn’t-blow generation. Keep track of the cost ratio….It won’t take long to see why offshore wind generation is a financial debacle, and still produces nothing when the wind doesn’t blow requiring natural gas generation as least initial cost backup.
“ Windfarms’ annual costs are almost all incurred regardless of their output, …”
But I thought that wind energy was free.
The article never mentions the curtailment payments? Are they considered in the “annual costs”?
Of course.
The numbers noted above are also extremely concerning, if they are remotely accurate.
The UK right now is curtailing around 3 Terawatt-hours a year at a cost of around 300 million British pounds. If this truly increases by a factor of 10 or more as is noted above, the already non-trivial curtailment spending will explode.
The UK uses something like 260 terawatt-hours as it is; 30 terawatt-hours is more than 10% of present consumption!
These are the sorts of primary school basic analyses that apparently have not been done by Keir Starmer, Rachel Reeves, nor Ed Miliband.
And these three economic- and mathematical illiterates claim to be worthy of three of the most responsible job titles in the land????
I’d love it to be true that Ed Miliband is the exception but the truth is the majority of Westminster believe CO2 emissions are causing warming and hence solar and wind will save us before this decade is out. Long before then I do hope the penny has dropped sufficiently loudly for at least one Labour or Tory member to see the truth and realise that warming is, in all probability, nothing to do with rising CO2 and everything to do with natural variations in temperature. Politicians are notoriously thick as COVID-19 proved to us all.
My hope is that when the penny drops the UK will invest in gas and nuclear as being much superior alternatives to wind or solar and, unlike the latter, will ensure electricity supply remains reliable in the whole of the UK at all times.
I have no idea of the language used when discussing building a new power station. The two things that matter are how much energy can you reliably deliver 24/7 and can your generator be powered up and down on demand. Any outfit that can’t give a positive answer to both questions are automatically disqualified. Problem solved.
Story tip.
“Weird Ed” overrules officials with immediate ban on new North Sea oil:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/07/11/miliband-overrules-officials-immediate-north-sea-oil-ban/