Saturday
Feb042012
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Tory windfarm revolt
Feb 4, 2012 Economics Energy: wind According to the Telegraph, around a hundred Tory MPs have demanded that subsidies to onshore windfarms be dramatically reduced.
A total of 101 Tory MPs have written to the Prime Minister demanding that the £400 million-a-year subsidies paid to the “inefficient” onshore wind turbine industry are “dramatically cut”.
The backbenchers, joined by some MPs from other parties, have also called on Mr Cameron to tighten up planning laws so local people have a better chance of stopping new farms being developed and protecting the countryside.
H/T Jiminy Cricket.
Reader Comments (79)
Dramatically reduced to nothing - with immediate effect - would be the right amount.
Latimer, my reaction was exactly the same when I read it. The trouble is their reasoning is wrong; it's not just the environmental disaster and the poverty-inducing subsidies, it's the whole bloody concept from the very beginning.
Wind turbines take unmetered power from the grid to avoid icing problems in hard frosts. A night-time infra-red photo of a wind farm should show them doing their bit for global warming.
Offshore or onshore, my dear Bish?
Bish, you write offshore when you mean onshore.
This is good news. Let's see some action following the consultation on the RO subsidies.
Onshore! Fixed now.
I am confident Dave will veto all new proposed windfarms.
Forget about the content for the moment. This is politics and this shifts the distribution curve of the debate. So now dissenting voices have a vehicle to be heard.
That is why it is important.
Though most of the arguments about onshore wind could equally be applied to offshore, in fact more so.
Of course, there is no evidence that, with all the problems of the harsh environment and maintenance difficulties, offshore turbines will be any more effective than those onshore. They certainly need that double subsidy compared to onshore. Both onshore and offshore subsidies should be stopped now.
Cmdocker. Did you just see that pig fly by? Dave will start cutting back on wind farms only when his friends and family have move their own money out of wind subsidies.
Where can we find this list?
101 of them you say!
Their names are all here:-
http://www.funtrivia.com/askft/Question14616.html
re cmdocker "I am confident Dave will veto all new proposed windfarms."
Doubt it; as his wife Sam might have something to say. Her daddy gets £360,000 from rent for turbines on his estate. Cleggy's wife sits as a director on a Spanish wind turbine company board.
Philip Foster (and others): do tellme, how can you see inside David Cameron's heart? Is a measly £360,000 for an inlaw worth sacrificing his lifetime reputation for, as later it becomes clear (as it always will) that this sordid matter is what determined his choices in this critical area? Is the concern Cameron's recently expressed for high household energy bills a complete fraud? It's in his self-interest electorally to care about that - pleas note that I'm not claiming absolute altruism for Dave or any politican. I admit that I don't know precisely what motivates him. I pray for him and I give thanks for the important freedoms we still have. And leave the rest with the Man who knows.
Philip Foster Feb 4, 2012 at 10:17 PM
Dave and Cleggy have both "been there" for there best pal Christopher, so Cleggy and Dave are going to be very, very, very good boys!
Their present motto being "there but for the grace of god go I".
No rocking boats in the Dave and Clegg pool, well not just yet!
Anyone who's had to maintain boats and marine equipment must be very sceptical about offshore wind.
I remember well the first time I lifted the engine hatch on a brand new powerboat after a winter left afloat on an estuary mooring.
Weather at sea is a mechanical and electrical machinery destroyer par excellence. I really wonder if the routine maintenance and service costs have been accurately factored in - or whether we'll be told in a few years "it's worse than we thought".
Although I would rather there were no energy subsidies I can think of a way for politicians to retreat somewhat from this mess: Let energy customers decide what types of energy they subsidise. A choice of say, wind, solar, gas, CCS coal and nuclear.
Yes, if there's a possibility of Cam & Cleggy having to sleep on the sofa we might have to wait a while for the people's will to prevail.
sea salt and metal love each other....sea salt and wind thngs will have a destructive relationship, but nobody told the greenies
Neta
Very cold. Snow in south east 4 years running.
Coal 48% UK's electricity
MP's get increasing flak from constituents due to over-ruled wind farm planning decisions. And wind farms tend to be located in rural (Conservative represented) constituencies. And their anger is rising like a BBD hockey stick trend line.
Sandy
While I have no doubt that this is true, it would be great to document this.
Foxgoose
How did you ever guess? :)
Foxgoose Feb 4, 2012 at 10:37 PM
"Weather at sea is a mechanical and electrical machinery destroyer par excellence. I really wonder if the routine maintenance and service costs have been accurately factored in - or whether we'll be told in a few years "it's worse than we thought"."
If you ask any self respecting mechanical design engineer about placing large rotating mechanical and electrical equipment in a northern hemisphere marine environment his initial comment will most likely be DON'T!
Combining my limited experience of offshore wind before retirement with the many scars gained fighting the ravages that the North Sea inflicted upon offshore installations. I am sure that we have no concept of what the future maintenance costs will be. Especially as it is on record that the average unit requires a major gearbox overhaul every 7 years and so far not one unit has achieved its design life of 20 to 25 years without a major overhaul.
I do hope I am wrong but there is the distinct possibility that the maintenance of these units will be very shortly deemed prohibitive, unless of course the tax payer picks up the bill.
We could well be building a fleet of albatrosses.
Yup
Take a state-of-the-art modern powerboat outdrive leg - epoxy coated aluminium casing, double 'o' ring sealed shafts, synthetic oil filled, stainless steel working parts - every three years you have to strip the whole thing down and the bloody sea water has always crept in somewhere it wasn't supposed to.
It's a pain when you've got to do it in a boatyard - 300 meters up in a gale on a maintenance platform will be interesting, to say the least (that's assuming the weather will let you get off the service vessel of course).
Suggested name for the 101 MPs
THE DALMATIONS
Quite a lot of "I'm all for green energy but..." quotes in the Telegraph piece.
Did the urgency go out of the door with Huhne?
Perhaps another hint of some sanity emerging. Elsewhere, however, Louise Gray reports that almost 800 of the things are due to come on-line this year, 478 onshore and 303 offshore. Huhne was due to open what's described as the 'largest wind farm in the world, more than 100 turbines off the coast of Cumbria' next week (although if the current cold snap continues, getting there might be tricky). And Gray adds that 'the Coalition remains committed to an ambitious construction programme, hoping to increase the number to 10,000 onshore and 4300 offshore by 2020'.
With Huhne's replacement being, on the face of it, another eco-loon, it's going to be interesting to see how this pans out. I think it can safely be predicted, as others have alluded to above, that the assumed working lives of these turbines, will prove to be optimistic.
But, but... I thought the debate was over?
This is a good sign, among many, that the UK and the world is coming to its senses. With all the vested interests it will take a while but the trend is your friend, as they say.
And all that "missing heat" is certainly helping, even though it is apparently just "weather."
@ Feb 4, 2012 at 11:21 PM | Unregistered CommenterGreen Sand " We could well be building a fleet of albatrosses." Just think of the great marine life habitat and artificial reefs that they will form when they sink to the bottom.
I suspect that the hard times that would lead to a ruthless ending of the subsidies/FITs will also preclude diverting funds to the unproductive task of removing the 'useless stumps'. The current owners will, of course, have declared themselves bankrupt in a timely fashion, and be unavailable for comment, for prosecution, or for anything at all. They will simply have ceased to exist as legal entities. We shall merely be left with 'told you so's all over the place as stark reminders of this particular madness.
RayG Feb 4, 2012 at 11:59 PM
Thanks Ray for spotting the silver lining, tis true that most sea creatures thrive on our inability to survive in their enviroment.
But if you had a little chat with a few of our "green" friends I am sure that they will be convinced that they know what is the best enviroment for sea creatures.
And before anybody starts about "pollution", we are well aware and probably do more to fight actual pollution than your CO2 ecoloon.
In the book "Collapse", there is a description of Easter Island and speculation that destroying natural resources to build the giant moai statues played a part in its downfall.
No doubt anthropologists will one day roam what used to be Britain, and ask:
Rick Bradford
I see "Windhenge."
Reminded me of this Ozymandias parody that Dreadnought did here some time ago:-
<I>Commenter Dreadnought captured the madness well on Bishop Hill:
“I met a traveller from a distant shire
Who said: A vast and pointless shaft of steel
Stands on a hill top… Near it, in the mire,
Half sunk, a shattered turbine lies, whose wheels
And riven blades and snarls of coloured wire
Tell that its owners well their mission read
Which did not last nor, nowhere to be seen,
The hand that paid them and the empty head.
And scrawled around the base these lines are clear:
‘My name is Millibandias, greenest Green.
Look on my works, ye doubters, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round this display
Of reckless cost and loss, blotless and fair,
The green and pleasant landscape rolls away.”
I would be happy for subsidies for wind turbines to continue. Under one condition:
Those who advocate them as a solution for CAGW have smart meters installed that can switch off their supply when the wind either doesn't blow or blows to hard.
"I see "Windhenge.
I wonder, you can envisage some future perpetual student chiselling away the ice and questioning why we faced our idols towards the setting sun.
You can almost hear the future “Attenborough” extolling that these primitives thought their fate was controlled by the waning of the setting sun.
TerryS @12:41
I think that should be extended to solar and night time....
(that's assuming the weather will let you get off the service vessel of course).
Feb 4, 2012 at 11:24 PM | Foxgoose
Oil-rigs and unmanned platforms all have helipads Foxgoose......I wonder why?
Friends and colleagues who have experience in the tropical seas are not optimistic about the fate of windmills in the sea either. You guys have your gales - I'll see them and raise you cyclones. A decent cyclone could wipe out a group of sea-windmills in minutes. And, the ability of seawater to find its way into allegedly sealed systems is not confined to the cold seas. Oh, no indeedy.
The notion of comparing offshore windmills with offshore gas/oil platforms is worth exploring. These are amazing engineering achievements, cost a squillion, and are only justified by the energy density that they produce. Their maintenance costs are staggering, and they are very dangerous and difficult workplaces - reflected in the high wages paid to the people who work there.
On any criterion - construction cost, maintenance, output, profitability - how would a windmill in the sea compare to an offshore oil/gas operation?
@johanna, Oil and gas rigs have people on board something that wouldn't have a problem going bang or "sinking". Plus you cannot choose where to put the rig. Safety and redundancy are paramount. On a rig you cannot undo a nut without an authorised ticket issued centrally so that "theoretically" everyone knows what is going on.
However, I would be interested in the details of the maintenance contract on these things. In a marine environment no one is going to offer a cheap contract. If there is no contract and it is on an event basis then future unplanned costs will be significant.
All anyone has to do to understand the sea is look at a ferry that is only a few years old. It has all the latest paints, seals, windows everything. Then look "closely" at the state of the thing. The reasons boats need a refit is not just to put new carpets in the bar.
For those interested in the costs and difficulties of offshore maintenance, here is a useful link.
http://www.offshorewindenergy.org/ca-owee/indexpages/Offshore_technology.php?file=offtech_p6.php
It's probably about 10 years old. Some quotes:
There are now three reports [Ireland, Texas and Holland] showing that as wind penetration increases, the efficiency of fossil-fuelled standby plant falls so that there is first no CO2 saving, then it increases.,
Let's suggest that the point of no return is between 15 and 18% of instantaneous demand. The evidence is the experience of an acquaintance who until recently ran a coal fired power station in Western Australia who did the coal records as above ~10%, the hunting of the turbines as they ramped up an down to cope with output variation of the local bird choppers led to rapid decrease of efficiency.
Either DECC has had no independent engineering input or it has ignored it. And in my own private research into the 4 serious physics' errors in the IPCC science [one is complete, I'm now destroying the assumptions about heat transfer despite a sterling response from a couple of warmists here], I have worked out that there is no significant CO2-AGW because you can explain all post ice age warming and much recent warming on the basis of the different aerosol optical physics of clouds compared with Sagan's mistaken view.
In short the IPCC and DECC have completely cocked up the science and the power system. If our leaders continue to push the wrong technology on us there will be a political revolution as the new ice age grips us and millions start to die. I hope this is starting now with a threat of de selection of MPs if they continue to support the windmills knowing they are a proxy to enrich the Mafia and landowners at the expense of the poor, AND CO2 emissions increase.
The organiser of the 101 MPs is Chris Heaton-Harris, the MP who was so incensed at the actions of a Government Inspector to ignore local democracy and allow a wind farm to be built overlooking the Naseby battlefield site that he said this in parliament (his famous 60-adjective speech):
It just goes to show that you can't ignore the democratic process for too long before the natives are revolting.
Green Sand at 11:21 PM | Albatrosses.
Wind, wind, every where,
Did no one stop to think;
Wind, wind, every where,
When subsidies do shrink.
Using the precautionary principle, the greens are so fond of telling us should be used when debating the possible minor warming of the atmosphere by CO2, shouldn't we stop the building of any offshore wind mills - when a wind mill blade comes off / wind mill bursts into flames / falls over, what will be the consequences for marine life?
And I thought the greenies wanted to save the whales!
Peter H: "Oil-rigs and unmanned platforms all have helipads Foxgoose......I wonder why?"
Oil-rigs and unmanned platforms don't have whopping great blades swishing round. Where would you put the helipad?
As well as bird choppers, we'd have "chopper choppers".
Many Greens used to be in favour of civil disobedience. Remember Swampy and also the Greenpeace activists who attempting to disrupt whaling?
Perhaps, in the interests of the environment, more civil disobedience is required to prevent the construction of wind farms.
The global warming is nicely deep, crisp and even, here in London this fine Sunday morning.
As Barry has mentioned, coal is definitely doing the heavy lifting at the moment. Glancing at the neta site, coal currently stands at 19703 MW, wind at 873.
Phillip - sadly this is what has been happening in Scotland and particularly in Perthshire, which where the local council no effectively longer contests wind applications because it is very likely that the Reporters (we don't have inspectors) will just give the applications the nod when it comes to the public inquiry. Planning policies, guidelines and frameworks are just tossed aside. There is no democracy at all. And I am sure that most people would accept that our landscapes, particularly in Highland Perthshire, sandwiched between two national parks, would put Northamptonshire's to shame. We also have a billion pound tourism industry founded on our stunning landscapes which they seem to have forgotten about.
Sadly Huhne going won't make much difference in Scotland, where it is the SNP (I never thought I would say this but the landowners' friend) who run the show, and are totally in the pocket of WWF Scotland and the renewables industry. They don't have a clue, and have plans for about 10GW of off-shore wind, and a big chunk of it in the Atlantic, e.g. the Tiree array, where AVERAGE wave heights are over 3m, and salt-spray winds reach well over 100mph most winters. So it is not just the onshore ROCs they need to scrap, off-shore wind, wave and tidal will also bankrupt us. They need to think again about the ROCs for micro-hydro also, as even famous waterfalls (e.g. the Birks of Aberfeldy) have been targeted by developers. La la land.
Salmond's dream is of a new Darien gap Scheme, extorting English money for Scottish wind power the English are forced to buy because of the Climate Change Act 2008. And when it's not windy, Scotland will buy English fossil and nuclear energy at 1/3 of the price so Scotland can claim to be 100% renewable in the 'Progressive' aka hidden Marxist political lexicon AND make an enormous profit.
Just like Poland with Germany, we need to stop the wind energy dumping scam making our fossil fuel emissions increase, also out power costs.