Chronic wind

The latest GWPF report - on the subject of wind energy - is published today. It makes pretty grim reading.

In his report, Professor Gordon Hughes (Edinburgh University) finds that

* Meeting the UK Government's target for renewable generation in 2020 will require total wind capacity of 36 GW backed up by 13 GW of open cycle gas plants plus large complementary investments in transmission capacity at a cost of about £120 billion.

* The same electricity demand could be met from 21.5 GW of combined cycle gas plants with a cost of £13 billion, i.e. an order of magnitude cheaper than the wind scenario.

* Under the most favourable assumptions for wind power, the Government's wind policy will reduce emissions of CO2 at an average cost of £270 per metric ton (at 2009 prices) which means that meeting the UK's renewable energy target would cost a staggering £78 billion per year in 2020.

Read the whole thing.

Comments

[sHx]

mydogsgotnonose:

"The bureaucracy will merge with existing landowners to own the means of production and the rest will live in Staliinist low energy blocks in cities with no rural development apart from the windmills and the dachas."

and

"DECC has been driven by Greenpeace's Marxist control of EU policy. The aim is to destroy Western industry and society as per UN Agenda 21 with the Mafia-controlled windmill companies, landowners and carbon traders getting rich from the income defined by carbon taxation.

This is nothing. You ever heard of fluoridation of water?

[lapogus]

Snotrocket -

JC on a bike!!! I'm wading through some of the reports at DECC that PB and CL linked. It occurs to me that not only do we have to put up with the stupidity of wind farms as one of the most inefficient generators of energy, we - the taxpayer - have to foot the bills for the huge numbers (it MUST be) of civil servants who set up, manage and populate the statistics data that the DECC produce for 'renewables'. I mean, there is an incredible industry just in the admin of these damn things! Tons of PDFs, XL speadsheets etc. And most of it just used as BS to baffle brains. (And I can speak from experience in BIG business running management reports/stats)

DECC is truly the home of the 'digging holes and filling them in again' jobs!..

Totally agree, but what's Judith Curry got to do with it? ;)

[clivere]

http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2012/03/self-aggrandisement.html

[Athelstan.]

Mar 7, 2012 at 10:20 AM Phillip Bratby

Indeed Phillip, a cosy sinecure and a 'nice little earner', who can blame them - I suppose.

[Don Pablo de la Sierra]

It is also an American problem as well

wind-power-companies-paid-to-not-produce