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« Tamsin on the jet stream | Main | The futility of the EU »
Thursday
Sep132012

Fisking Renewable UK

Delingpole is seeking help in fisking the claims made about wind power by RenewableUK (formerly the British Wind Energy Association). The specific claims are in this article by the organisation's deputy CEO, Maf Smith:

Why I don’t think wind costs the earth

By Maf Smith Deputy Chief Executive, RenewableUK

Britain is the windiest country in Europe so let’s use it to the full. We have enough wind energy installed to supply nearly five million households all year round. We already get five per cent of our electricity from wind turbines – we’re on course to get 25 per cent of it by 2020. Turbines don’t need much wind to start turning that’s why they generate electricity for at least 80 per cent of the time.

We want to keep electricity bills as low as possible. So we have to stop importing massive amounts of expensive fossil fuels from abroad as we have no control over how much they cost. We know exactly how much wind costs: just 2p per household per day – that’s according to independent regulator Ofgem.

Nearly 12,000 people work in the UK’s wind energy industry.

That number is set to increase to nearly 90,000 by 2021.

Independent opinion polls by Ipsos MORI show two-thirds of us want more wind power, and 57 per cent have no problem with the visual impact of wind turbines on the landscape.

There are many myths peddled about wind energy, often by those with a vested interest in spreading untruths.

The fact is that modern wind turbines aren’t noisy. Try standing right under one and hear how quiet they are. No doctors who are experts in the field believe that wind turbines affect people’s health. There’s no peer-reviewed evidence to support any such claims. And there’s no direct evidence that they affect house prices, in fact the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors says they don’t.

This reliable source of power is providing us with a secure supply of energy and jobs while cutting carbon emissions – so wind doesn’t cost the Earth.

 

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Reader Comments (73)

@ManicBeancounter,

If you want graphs of wind output per week, month and year go to http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/ they have everything you need.

Sep 13, 2012 at 9:37 PM | Unregistered Commenterivan

This guy needs to procure himself a brain before he puts his mouth into gear. Amongst many other ill-thought out statements I think this one shows he isn't thinking at all:

Nearly 12,000 people work in the UK’s wind energy industry.

That number is set to increase to nearly 90,000 by 2021.

This means the wind energy industry will be ~50% less efficient in 2021 because it will be employing 50% more people per unit of energy generated than it does now.

Doh!

Sep 13, 2012 at 9:56 PM | Unregistered CommenterBilly Liar

I don't know about wind power related jobs; but here in the Limousin a new large solar array was announced which it is hoped will have 2 permanent employees, presumably they'll be using locally sourced buckets and sponges in their cleaning duties.

In a rural high unemployment area two new jobs is good.

Sep 13, 2012 at 10:21 PM | Unregistered CommenterSandyS

Sep 13, 2012 at 9:37 PM ivan

Many thanks for the link. Have used that site for years until lost in a laptop meltdown earlier this year. Could not find it by Google, cannot understand why not?

Sep 13, 2012 at 10:42 PM | Registered CommenterGreen Sand

"And there’s no direct evidence that they affect house prices, in fact the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors says they don’t."

The RICS said that ? As a long standing member, I'd be appalled if that is what was said and meant ... on what evidence could such a statement be made ?

Sep 13, 2012 at 10:47 PM | Unregistered CommenterStreetcred

Isn't the "2p per day" figure the amount we pay in SUBSIDY to wind turbines?

Sep 13, 2012 at 11:02 PM | Unregistered CommenterDave_G

Here are a few links to some other problems with intermittent wind - and their problems with wildlife. The list seems endless.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/instability-in-power-grid-comes-at-high-cost-for-german-industry-a-850419.html

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/kevin-myers/kevin-myers-energy-policy-based-on-renewables-will-win-hearts-but-wont-protect-their-owners-from-frostbite-and-death-due-to-exposure-3012098.html

http://toryaardvark.com/2012/01/16/spanish-wind-farms-kill-6-to-18-million-birds-bats-every-year/

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1394945/The-green-killer-Scores-protected-golden-eagles-dying-colliding-wind-turbines.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/windpower/8545306/Wind-farms-Britain-is-running-out-of-wind.html

http://www.komonews.com/news/local/45426922.html

http://toryaardvark.com/2011/11/17/14000-abandoned-wind-turbines-in-the-usa/

Sep 14, 2012 at 12:37 AM | Unregistered Commentermikegeo

oooh now the Greens and "renewables" fanatics will really hate him.... Lomborg weights in with comparison of improvements in USA's energy mix due to increasing usage of natural gas:

Bjorn Lomborg on natural gas and fracking


...David Victor, an energy expert at the University of California, San Diego, estimates that the shift from coal to natural gas has reduced US emissions by 400 to 500 megatonnes (Mt) of CO2 per year. To put that number in perspective, it is about twice the total effect of the Kyoto Protocol on carbon emissions in the rest of the world, including the European Union.

It is tempting to believe that renewable energy sources are responsible for emissions reductions, but the numbers clearly say otherwise. Accounting for a reduction of 50 Mt of CO2 per year, America’s 30,000 wind turbines reduce emissions by just one-tenth the amount that natural gas does. Biofuels reduce emissions by only ten Mt, and solar panels by a paltry three Mt....

Sep 14, 2012 at 2:15 AM | Registered CommenterSkiphil

Relax folks, it will only take 60,000 wind turbines to fully supply the UK, only occupy 10% of the land, and probably only double the price of electricity.

Sep 14, 2012 at 5:54 AM | Unregistered CommenterTomcat

"Britain is the windiest country in Europe"

If he is referring to the amount of hot air coming out of the government, I would have to agree.

Sep 14, 2012 at 10:04 AM | Unregistered CommenterAlex Heyworth

I have a brilliant new idea for energy saving, Instead of using wastefully-manufactured matches or battery-operated piezo electric lighters, we could get a dry stick and then twiddle another stick round and round in it until we generate a flame....think of the savings! Any government ministers like to invest in dry sticks?

Sep 14, 2012 at 10:05 AM | Unregistered CommenterMessenger

What is wrong with you people - trying to save money.
Money is not 'lost' like your pocket money when the government spends it, it just goes round and round. However it is spent, the people who earned it will spend it themselves and the GDP goes up. It always returns to the Treasury in taxes. If it is spent unwisely the first time round it can always be spent better the next time round and the next. Gloriously, the faster it is spent the faster it is returned. So lets build the windmills, lets even build some pyramids. Pay some people to dig holes then pay others to fill them. Once in a while it might be spent on something useful but, really, does it matter when?

Sep 14, 2012 at 12:13 PM | Unregistered CommenterAlan Reed

"7% of gas and electricity bills" (?ECC)

My electricity bill includes a pie chart that shows 12% taken for 'government obligation' and that was over a year ago. Oh look, here it is!

Sep 14, 2012 at 12:22 PM | Registered Commenterjamesp

Shevva at 3.23 p.m. on 13th September.

You are so right. As a retired mechanical engineer who spent much of his life trying to keep production machinery going on dry land, miles from the coast, I have VERY serious doubts about offshore wind farms.
For a start, they are, as Shevva points out, in the most hostile environment on earth. Secondly, unlike (say) oil and gas rigs, there are no 'onsite' maintenance crews. Thirdly, the very simplest maintenance is going to require benign sea conditions, and more serious repairs are going to need a large floating crane (as well as benign sea conditions). Repairs could take months; how long before maintenance becomes unaffordable, and they start to be abandoned..?
I give it five years tops; complete offshore farms decommissioned in twelve years. Twenty-five year life..? Yeah, right....

Sep 14, 2012 at 1:15 PM | Unregistered CommenterDavid

David - there are already a few offshore installations. Do you have any info on their reliability/downtime/costs yet?

Sep 14, 2012 at 2:01 PM | Unregistered CommenterJames P

"No doctors who are experts in the field believe that wind turbines affect people’s health."

I call absolute effing BS on this. Define "experts", Mr Maf Smith, or should that be Naff Smiff?

Sep 14, 2012 at 2:09 PM | Unregistered CommenterChris M

From the Mackie’s/ASA ruling:

Mackie’s stated that their ice cream business was actually carbon positive, not just carbon neutral and that they had deliberately understated this claim. .. They pointed out that, when the electricity produced by their turbines that year was converted to tonnes of CO2 using the Defra conversion factor for purchased electricity, the CO2 offset was considerably greater than the total CO2 emitted in the running of their business.

So... they are a carbon sink because they are selling more electricity than they are consuming? The trouble is that this is notional CO2 that they are mopping up, not actual - it’s an offset, not the real thing, which they are still creating with their vehicles and anything else they use that is oil or gas fired.

It is really just a reduction in the amount of CO2 generated for a given number of kWh. Wind generators themselves are responsible for a load of CO2 during manufacture and installation, but nowhere is that taken into account. And I'm ignoring the power stations humming away on standby for when the wind drops.

By this tortured logic, I could be ‘carbon positive’ simply by lighting a few candles, or using my motorbike instead of my 7-litre Cobra...

Sep 14, 2012 at 2:55 PM | Registered Commenterjamesp

jamesp

Ref your pie chart:

37% profit and you have not burnt your suppliers flag or stormed their head office, beheading the sales manager on route?
What patient people you yanks are.

Sep 14, 2012 at 4:03 PM | Registered CommenterDung

Dung

I think you're mistaking the profit for the actual electricity, but I admit that the colours could be more distinctive. It's a British Gas chart, actually... :-)

Sep 14, 2012 at 4:33 PM | Registered Commenterjamesp

More wind turbine madness.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scotland/9536658/Scottish-councils-paying-millions-to-block-wind-farms.html

Officials at Perth and Kinross Council have calculated they have spent almost precisely a million pounds dealing with appeals from green energy companies that have had planning permission refused.

In all but a handful of cases, the original decision to block the application was upheld on appeal but the local authority’s legal and consultancy fees are borne by the public purse despite budgets being squeezed by spending cuts.

Fees paid by the developers are capped at £15,950, meaning any administrative costs above that amount are funded by the taxpayer. The public purse is also being forced to pay hundreds of thousands of pounds in legal costs if developers win their appeal.

Sep 14, 2012 at 7:07 PM | Unregistered CommenterMessenger

David wrote:

"... complete offshore farms decommissioned in twelve years..."

You know, I suspect they will simply be abandoned, as will the onshore plants. I fancy the scrap value is less than the work involved in taking them down, and the carpetbaggers will be nowhere to be found.

Sep 14, 2012 at 7:43 PM | Unregistered CommenterJeff Wood

That begs the question, what happens if (when?) a ship runs into the base of an abandoned turbine. Are these structures lit at night? Who would be liable?

Sep 15, 2012 at 6:14 AM | Unregistered CommenterHector Pascal

"a ship runs into the base of an abandoned turbine"

Or a working one! That could be very expensive...

Sep 15, 2012 at 2:49 PM | Unregistered CommenterJames P

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