Friday
Feb112011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Parliament debates wind farms
Feb 11, 2011 Climate: Parliament Energy There was a Westminster Hall debate on wind farms yesterday. Westminster Hall debates are often sparsely attended affairs, but yesterday's occasion appears to have been rather different, with what the speaker called "an extraordinary number" of honourable members wanting to speak.
Those attending appear overwhelmingly to have been from the government side of the house, with apparently only two opposition members showing their faces. I haven't read the whole transcript, but most people seem to have had little good to say about Labour's great blight on the British landscape.
Reader Comments (57)
The scary thing about the march towards wind farms is that they often fail to achieve their raison d'etre - an overall reduction in carbon emissions. There is no point in generating from the wind if you can't turn your base load down to save carbon. If you keep on generating "extra" electricity from the wind when your thermal base load is providing more than enough, you effectively increase fossil fuel usage due to the embedded life cycle carbon emissions in the wind turbine's manufacture, installation, maintenance and decommissioning.
Wind farms are a monument to folly.
My local wind turbine. In Reading
Is the UK's worst performing wind turbine... (15% capacity)
£130,000 of subsidies generated £100,000 of electricity last year.
It has eaten over £600000 of subsidies since built (2005)
Ecotricity iconic landmark wind tirbine at Green Park, Reading.
http://www.ecotricity.co.uk/
Which as it is right on top of Junction 11 of the M4, is seen by millions every year driving past (blades notturning)
20,000 children go to visit every year...
Any coincidence that the Daily Mail ran this story a couple of days ago (pg 9, full page)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1355419/UKs-useless-wind-turbine-Cost-130k-raise-electricity-worth-100k.html
This was all in my local paper, months ago...
That Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire, Conservative) knows her onions. I read about 15% oof the way down the transcript and saw very little support for turbines, other than the job opportunities and even that was tempered by the realisation that the taxpayers pay for the jobs anyway, they are not created by the developers. I shall save the rest for this evening.
Wind farms will come to be condemned as the most Quixotic attempt to defeat the illusory CAGW monster.
Feb 11, 2011 at 10:16 AM | Gortlosk67
National Grid regard the output from wind-fired power stations as a "reduction in demand".
In other words, when NG see that the wind-fired input to the grid is increasing, they ask a proper power station to reduce their output accordingly.
I understand that NG pay these proper power stations a fee to allow NG to make these requests.
Well the Dutch are changing tack
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/02/10/holland_energy_switch/
I seem to recall a programme featuring Spike Milligan, titled 'The Follies of the Wise' : how long before there is a new version, titled 'The Follies of the Terminally Stupid (aka politicians)'?
Barry Woods
Ecotricity. The subsidy-farming
scambusiness set up by Dale Vince, one of the UK's foremostopportunistsgreen entrepreneurs.barry
when you write generated 100K in energy:
-Do you mean 100k at free market prices?
-Or do you mean 100k at enforced prices which effectively taxes the utilities (which they then charge through to the customers)
No utility would ever dream to buy windmill energy when it is not enforced upon them. Not even if the energy were freely delivered to them:
-It is energy in a place they do not want
-At a time they do not want
-at complete odds with the rest of their infrastructure
Favourite quote
Not sure if the localism bill with 'communities sharing the benefit' will help or hinder. It may reverse the current situation where planning applications are overruled to meet regional or national targets, but may also increase the bungs offered by subsidy developers.
as a warming denier (I think global warming is a scam from beginning to end , organised by marxist who live in mansions and jet around calling themselves the good guys) I strongly believe in investing in new energies and technologies.
Sadly windmills or burning corn stacks are not new technologies.
windmills the dutch used in the middle ages allready and burning organics, leaves etc (even after some processing came with the neanderthal)
I still have to see the first enlightened libtardo government take steps to develop more physicists chemical studies and engineering , and a broader market place for fusion / algae research etc.
I think that would be too unsettling ,to disturb the grand milking schemes in JET/GHC/ITER/CERN and the univissitties..
Probably lost on most Brits, especially their Members of P., is the rich history or writers lambasting foolish ideas and schemes presented as if it's reality. CO2 fits perfectly. Only missing is that guy from the continent with that joisting thing - a shame Monty Python is no longer produced.
Re BBD
Mr Vince is in the news again for banning burgers and sausages at his football club
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-gloucestershire-12416671
So much for green choices.
Am I getting too old for all this. One of the statements in the house included this little gem:
"I also want to make a call for action on the renewable heat incentive. Last week, I saw a company in my constituency that turns methane from landfill sites into biofuel. The machines that the company uses to do that generate heat, which the company plans to use in polytunnels in Kent, allowing the strawberry-growers there to compete with our colleagues on the continent. What could be better than trying to use that long chain of renewable energy to provide yet more energy?"
Sooo, we have to combat global warming by introducing new greener technology that as a by product produces extra heat, warming, that we utilise to grow food for humans!!!!!!!
I'm sorry, can I get off now, the merry go round is making me dizzy and I think I need to go and lie down for a few years.
Atomic
Oh, that's priceless, that is. Good old Dale. What an icon of green business.
What a towering, self-righteous pillock. With pockets full of all our money.
I haven't read this yet, but I understand the main issue was getting these useless wind turbines away from people, because the noise ruins peoples' health and destroys their property values. Unfortunately, because of the renewable energy target that Bliar was stupid enough to sign up to, the things will be built offshore instead. That makes the electricity eevn more unaffordable, it harms the stable operation of the grid, and the turbines don't even reduce carbon emissions beacuse of the constant need for power stations to burn fuel without producing electricity, to act as backup. We have to kill off the renewable energy target scam and thus kill off the AGW scam. Simple.
Unfortunately we are ruled by the technically challenged who are influenced by the equally technically challenged water melons.
oh what a tangled web of green connections..
Ecotricity's Stargetgy director, is from Futerra... The company that made the governemnet go green -Rules of the Game, etc
Lucy Shea, Strategy Director, Futerra Sustainability Communications
Lucy is Futerra's CEO and drives our international work. An expert on internal and external communications for sustainable development, Lucy has a slightly guilty carbon footprint from regular international training on climate change communications.
Lucy is the author of Communicating Sustainability, a special UN Environment Programme report, and is a member of the UN’s Sustainable Lifestyles Taskforce.
In 2006, National Grid was of the opinion that .."as the amount of wind increases, the proportion of conventional capacity that can be displaced without eroding the level of security reduces. For example, for 25000MW of wind only 5000MW (i.e. 20% of the wind capacity) of conventional capacity can be retired. ......It follows that the electricity market will need to maintain in service a larger proportion of conventional generation capacity despite reduced load factors. Such plant is often referred to as "standby plant"
In other words, 25GW of wind-fired power needs at least 20GW of proper power stations "on standby" to cope with the intemittency problem.
In 2008, NG had a "vision", by 2020, to have connected about 32GW of wind-fired power stations. So, if that dream comes to pass, NG will need about 26GW of proper power stations "on standby".
Trebles all round!
This is an area where Prince Charles himself could help. By cutting emissions.
......Changing the Guard at Buckingham Palace...
http://fenbeagleblog.wordpress.com/
Barry Woods
At the trough, that's where you will find the swine.
Silly wind farms still being given the go-ahead:
http://eandt.theiet.org/news/2011/feb/wind-farm.cfm
"A new offshore wind farm that will generate enough electricity to power the equivalent of 150,000 homes has been given the go-ahead by the government.
Energy company E.ON was granted permission to build the 77-turbine Humber Gateway wind farm, which will be sited around five miles off the Holderness coast in Yorkshire.
Energy and Climate Change Secretary Chris Huhne said offshore wind not only provides clean, green, secure energy, but the investment that comes with it is great for the UK economy.
"A new wind farm off the Humberside coast will be a further jobs and investment boost for the region, hot on the heels of Siemens' announcement of plans to develop the Port of Hull," he said.
The wind farm is the first off shore scheme to be given consent since December 2008."
Scientist for truth
Yes, but it doesn't mean it will actually get built. I think the writing's on the wall for offshore wind. Give it another couple of years and then - implosion.
The Climate Change Act must first be modified or repealed though. And it will be, because it binds the UK to the unachievable.
Also, at some point, our masters might wake up to the fact that the forced, harmful decarbonisation of the UK economy is simply gesture politics on a grand scale. China, the US and India will be the principle determinants of emissions growth in the future, entirely overprinting the tiny contribution (and any even smaller reductions) by the UK.
Fenbeagle
You are a man possessed! You've been sketching away to good effect though...
I hope everyone's been popping over for a chortle.
With the feed-in tariff, why not rig them up to diesel engines to keep them rotating even when it's not very windy? $$$$$!!!
Sorry should be 'principal determinants' at 12:50pm. Don't know what's wrong with me at the moment.
The windmills are our version of the mo'ai of Easter Island -- huge useless structures erected at vast cost in both human and environmental terms in the attempt to placate the gods of a mythic religion.
Can we hope that the windmills will meet a similar fate to the mo'ai? And that the same historical fate might befall those who caused them to be built?
Anyone interested in the "Infrastructure, Engineering and Climate Change Adaptation" report commissioned by Defra, it's here:
http://www.theiet.org/publicaffairs/ete/infrastructure-final.cfm?type=pdf
A load of rubbish and hot air in my opinion.This climate change scam is so unaffordable, we are pouring our national wealth into a black hole and rapidly decapitalizing ourselves. This report is looking to create lots and lots of jobs for engineers, of course, burning up capital chasing rainbows.
"Promoting the skills necessary in engineering for adaptation is essential...More engineers...will be needed to develop and implement adaptation measures"
"the cost of adapting fully whilst maintaining current levels of service is almost certainly unaffordable...Technologies employed overseas may also deliver service levels below those expected for UK consumers"
"There must be expectation management as effects of changing weather...may lead to a degradation of service. Improving resilience will come at a cost, and a completely robust infrastructure, if achievable, will cost considerably more"
Oh, I didn't notice the vested interests there, did you? And we will pour our money into climate adaptation scams (wind turbines being one) that will waste our money and produce inferior returns.
Someone needs to blow the whistle on all this.
ScientistForTruth - you might be interested to know that I wrote yesterday to our beloved Department of Energy and Climate Change (pause for me to throw up - sorry..) pointing out to them that it really was time they stopped putting out press releases such as this one, which included the phrase: 'Will power UP TO 150000 homes'...
At the time of writing I invited them to check the NETA tables at that moment, which indicated that wind was, nationally, providing 6% of the available capacity (0.3% of total demand). Yesterday's weather was fairly typical for this time of year. Translated to the new wind farm, in reality this meant that, far from powering UP TO 150000 homes, the installation would ACTUALLY power 9350 homes - which seemed to me to be a pretty poor use of taxpayers' and bill-payers' money.
Not wrong, am I..??
Further to my previous post - most of the much-trumpeted jobs associated with wind farms - certainly the manufacture of the turbines - is going to China.
Have the Chinese sudenly gone all green..?
Not a bit of it - they build them for the same reason that they make little sparkly plastic toys for girls to put in their hair - MONEY.
BBD at 12:50,
I don't think we will see a change in stance.
Charles Hendry (Minister of State (Renewable Energy), Energy and Climate Change; Wealden, Conservative)
"Common sense dictates that we should consider our own natural resources. We have the strongest wind resource anywhere in Europe. To turn away from that and say that we should not be using it would be a serious mistake by Government, and one that we are not prepared to make."
and further:
"Many of my hon. Friends have talked about the intermittency of wind, but that is an issue with which technology can increasingly deal. It is not about having a whole fleet of coal-fired power stations standing by to be pumped up into action when the wind does not blow. Let us consider the scope for pumped storage-an electricity interconnector to Norway, perhaps, or a new one into France that builds into its nuclear capacity-and the work that is being done on battery technologies and on a whole range of new technologies that will mean that the power can be there when we need it rather than when the resource happens to blow. That will be one of the big changes that we see coming through in this decade. The issue of intermittency will become one that can be fully addressed."
This is not a UK issue it is a European issue. As our part of a greater European single country we are supposed to provide the wind power into a pan European super grid. France provides the Nuclear option, Spain the Solar.
We will never be given a referendum vote on Europe because we cannot be allowed to leave, we are expected through local taxation to provide clean energy into Europe and receive stabilisation of supply through the continental super-grid. There will be no new nuclear, coal or gas power plants built in Britain in the future, when Europe is a single country they will not be required.
So when does Europe become a single country? Reducing carbon emissions have target dates of 2020,2030 and 2050 my guess would be 2050 but that may just be wishful thinking as I probably won't be around then.
Re Lord Beaverbrook's verbatim quote from Charles Hendry - good grief - has he the slightest idea how much all this interconnecting, pumped storage, battery stuff would actually COST..??
Oh - never mind - its only US who'd be paying, so I guess it doesn't matter...
Lord Beaverbrook
Just because ill-informed and not particularly intelligent politicians spout nonsense does not alter the laws of physics.
The pan-European super grid is largely a fantasy of wishful thinking, and my bet is that it will stay that way.
There are lots of energy fantasists enjoying their strut in the limelight right now, but the facts and the engineering realities are against them (whatever they claim).
That will bring them down to earth in the end.
Hendry doesn't seem to understand much about the realpolitik over UK - European integration either. All told, he sounds like a complete muppet.
Hendry states that "We have the strongest wind resource anywhere in Europe" then reveals himself as a fool by failing to quantify how large (in potential generation terms) that resource actually is.
THAT is an important question, and his failure to acknowledge it shows him to be a copper-bottomed energy fantasist.
Everything else he says can be ignored.
@Feb 11, 2011 at 10:28 AM | Barry Woods The most shocking thing is that even with that story highlighting how inefficient and expensive wind power is, 43% of people who polled said we should keep wasting money on wind. Personally I feel if that 43% are so up on wind then they can pay the subsidy and leave the rest of us logical thinkers without the burden of their religious belief in the power of wind
BBD,
This whole CO2, renewable energy farce has nothing whatever to do with facts or science that's just a means to an end, it's political.
First they raise concerns about having power independence from foreign sources.
Next they create a power market that is 'better by far for the environment and economy' but relies upon a stable backbone to avoid brown outs.
Then they blame previous administrations for no investment in the stable backbone and allow it to crumble.
Finally they state all is not lost because our friends, (EU) foreign sources, have the stability that we need and we have the ability to ensure that the European green targets are met from internal, European, sources rather than unstable foreign, rest of the world, sources. Integration completed with a single currency so that we can compare prices and buy our power from a company in southern Italy if we find it is cheaper.
Won't our grand children be proud of the stoical resilience that our current politicians went through to create this brand new country of Europe.
See how the history books will represent the hardship of the population with enforced fuel poverty and restrictive taxation in order to benefit future generations, yeah right.
/rant off
There were several mentions in the debate of legally binding committments to building more wind follies. I thought one of the perks of being government was the ability to get rid of bad laws. Ok, some of the problem has been imposed on us by the EU, but surely we can ignore them?
Lord Beaverbrook
It is a grim, predictable farce. But that's what happens when idiots and ideologues seize at the levers of power.
BBD
I fear that your last statement is not so far off the mark my friend!
sHx said:
Wind farms will come to be condemned as the most Quixotic attempt to defeat the illusory CAGW monster."
Love the imagery! and with other comments ... python ... jousting ... is there a Josh cartoon here?
Don QuiHuhne 'Tilting at windmills' perhaps?
Feb 11, 2011 at 1:23 PM | Lord Beaverbrook
Hendry says:
"It is not about having a whole fleet of coal-fired power stations standing by to be pumped up into action when the wind does not blow."
Is this what is known as a strawman argument?
There is NOBODY talking about fleets of "coal-fired power stations standing by" because the Climate Change Act is preventing the construction of new coal-fired plants by making it too difficult to get a permit.
However, National Grid in their submission dated 7 February 2011 to the Select Commitee warn the doublethinkers in Parliament that f***ing about with pushing low carbon fantasies might (ie will) reduce the availability of back-up generation:
"For example, interventions for just low carbon technology might reduce market investment for establishing or maintaining back-up generation."
So the people who know the most are ignored (or contradicted) by people who know nothing.
Also see my comment above Feb 11, 2011 at 12:02 PM
I wonder if anyone raised the issue of neodymium and the disasterous levels of pollution that is occuring in china.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/search.html?pageOffset=&pageSize=&searchPhrase=neodymium&dateupdated=&dateFrom=&dateTo=
If you haven,t seen this, it,s worth a look.
BBD
I think, sir, you have summarized the reality completely.
"Philip Davies (Shipley, Conservative)
The bottom line is that these policies will produce for Britain the most expensive electricity in the world if we carry on down this particular route. Is it morally or politically acceptable, particularly at a time of national austerity when families are struggling to pay their bills, for the Government to keep raising them just to meet an EU target? I do not think it is. It will hit the poorest people in our communities first.
I do not understand why the people who propose these green policies are so shy about it. Anyone can say that they are in favour of green energy. It is like asking someone, "Would you like a Rolls-Royce car?" Most people would say, "Yes," but if one were to ask, "Would you like a Rolls-Royce car? You'll have to spend the rest of your life living in a tent to pay for it?" they might say, "No." If we ask people whether they are in favour of green energy, they say, "Of course we are-it sounds marvellous." However, if Huw Irranca-Davies were to ask them whether they were prepared to pay astronomical bills in order to pursue that, I think that he might get a different answer."
I believe someone else tagged this earlier, but it resonates so strongly with me that I had to reproduce it again.
Good to see that there has been a small discussion about this, but frankly, the speed with which the wheels of State turn, I can't see any change looming and by the time some faceless bureaucrat gets off his/her backside, does a bit of consultation (mostly with green energy developers with their faces securely in the trough), we'll still be fighting off wind farm developments, but by then we'll be suffering the power cuts because the conventional power stations will be too old or emitting too much and will be turned off and no new ones will have been built. It's not an encouraging vision to be looking forward to, is it? Oh well, perhaps the globe will have warmed up by then. We won't need so much power and we can eradicate fuel poverty that way! (My lightbulb moment of the day!)
Dale Vince - he is active near me - we call him Vile Dunce. And as for that comment about his football players, I'm off for a large, rare steak.......yum.
UNCORRECTED ORAL EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE THE ENERGY AND CLIMATE CHANGE COMMITTEE ELECTRICITY MARKET REFORM WEDNESDAY 2 FEBRUARY 2011
Extract:
"There are two different time frames here. I strongly agree on 2050, but the thing to remember is that our new nuclear plant will probably be load following. The profile of what our plant can do will change, and that will be a big advantage if we achieve what we want to achieve in nuclear by 2050. There is a risk in the transition. We read recently that it is estimated that by 2020 the hourly swing will go from 5 GW in 2009 to 17 GW in 2020 - that is if we achieve what we expect to achieve on wind and so on. It is an enormous figure; 17 GW is like every household in the UK going from no power to almost full power within an hour. It is a major swing.
I think we have to worry quite a lot about what the transition will be. There is no question but that by 2020 most of our coal plant will come off the system. Our coal plant is providing an awful lot of that flexibility. We are a very strategic asset, so I see it day by day. We spend a lot of time providing frequency response and balancing support services, and on special contracts to National Grid just for that support. The coal will go, or a large part of it. That is simply a feature of the industrial emissions directive. You will also find that some of the older plant will go, which is also providing some of the flexibility, and we will have much less fossil fuel plant to balance the system. I don’t know what the answer is, but I believe it is something we should worry about. As you said, people should be trying to estimate exactly what the problem is so we can work out how to solve it."
The doublethinkers in Parliament are constrained by their stupidity to ignore this wisdom, consequently the UK is doomed!
cederhill
You make an excellent point. And although I consider him Irish and not British (as I am Irish), Jonathan Swift did an excellent job with Gulliver's Travels some years ago. In particular, one of his creatures, the Yahoos, appear to still be with us. I wonder what he would have done as a contributor to BH?
Or, what would be in Gulliver's Further Travels.
Brownedoff
Here lies a true conundrum. Those who are involved in electricity generation realise that all this wind power has to backed up somehow.
The lead from the government is that there will be no public money for coal or nuclear.
So what do they do, they could build and commission nuclear plants by themselves, as long as they pay for it, they will be granted permission. But how do they compete with their rivals who have green generation subsidies provided by the government. Do they build and mothball ready for a future turn around in government policy tying up millions of pounds for how long, a generation?
Would you bet your house on what you think is the correct action that the government should take?
“The Government recognises that the hectoring approach has not worked. As Energy and Climate Change Secretary, Ed Miliband likened those who oppose wind farms to people who drive across zebra crossings without stopping. But such castigations have only led to more entrenched opposition and a lack of popular consent for local wind farm developments."
I was unaware that you had to stop at zebra crossings. I only do it if somebody is crossing.
Don Pablo:
Re Gulliver's Travels, I'm sure you've read this, but just in case not, here it is again:
http://web.me.com/sinfonia1/Clamour_Of_The_Times/Clamour_Of_The_Times/Entries/2009/7/15_Mr_Lemuel_Gulliver_Visits_Milibandia.html