Bishop Hill Spiral of subsidy
Sep 24, 2012 Energy: nuclear Energy: wind One of the points I made in my Spectator speech was the effect of wind power on the rest of the electricity system - a familiar subject to readers here. Assuming we have no coal-fired generation in the future, the baseload power generation market will have to be divided between wind and nuclear. However, with ministers declaring that there will be an expansion of the subsidised wind sector, that marketplace does not look ripe for investment in new nuclear. Generators in that sector are therefore holding out for generous incentives of their own.
Last month, EDF told the Telegraph that they wanted a guaranteed price of £140/MWh roughly double what gas might cost us. The chief executive of Scottish and Southern today argues that a line should be drawn in the sand at £65/MWh and that nuclear generators should get their costs down.
You can see where this is heading: each generator will demand more and more support to keep them in the marketplace. A guaranteed price for nukes will have to be met by an increase in support for wind. We will end up with a disastrous spiral: subsidy after bung after price floor after graft after corruption. All paid for by you.
So here's a novel idea. How about we do away with the rules and regulations and see who is really the cheapest?
Reader Comments (65)
I think you meant "baseload power generation market will have to be divided between gas and nuclear". Wind cannot do baseload.
"So here's a novel idea. How about we do away with the rules and regulations and see who is really the cheapest?"
I don't believe you'll get much truck from a generation that's been brought up to believe that the state's spending is "pollytoynbeed" * out of nothing
*To "pollytoynbee" is to base your assumptions as to cost on the fact that the state has a bottomless pit of money and can afford anything it wants to afford.
'How about we do away with the rules and regulations and see who is really the cheapest?'
Tut, tut. Where's the kickbacks/free holidays/benefits to old pals in all that?
Well, Bishop, I reckon you either get to be canonised or committed.
Alternatively perhaps you ought to invest in increased personal security. Such bursts of common sense tend to be less than welcome these days. If the idea that capitalist theory should actually become capitalist practice were to catch on then how would all the Sir Reggies of this world be able to keep themselves in the style to which they feel they are entitled to be accustomed?
Personally I'm on your side in this. Just don't tell anybody.
Our over lords thought it was a good idea but as always their idiotic’s will just lead to more misery for me and you.
The up side is you can't prove I stole that wood from the lock-you-up-if-you-steal-our-wood forestry commission.
To do this we'd say no more windmill/solar subsidies.
OT but Jo Nova appears to be back up with a new site!
Maybe a wee hello is in order.
This is another confirmation of the push to remove the distinctions between public and private to get a state directed economy but having nominal private ownership. The phrase I commonly see is "use the markets." This is not a market. Markets would not be doing this. Government officials and politicians want these policies because of the political power that goes with directing an economy. Big Business goes along because they already have a seat at the table. They want to keep it and capitalize on their political connections. Politicians being so much more predictable in what they find enticing vs markets.
I learned a great deal when it turned out Cambridge Education was a subsidiary of Mott MacDonald. Everything pushed advances the statist dream to reshape and control the economy and people's behavior and advance the power of government. Since govt at some level provides most of the revenue. Big Blue pushes a similar revenue model. Perfectly rational model but there is no prosperity for the masses in the future in most of their recommended policies. And it is the masses that are the ultimate source of all that revenue being doled out in "projects."
What, all rules and regulations? And if coal turns out cheapest, are you volunteering to have a coal-fired plant built with no rules and regulations on your hill?
"How about we do away with the rules and regulations and see who is really the cheapest?"
Because the cheapest is the one that won't be there when you need it most? Redundancy costs, and you don't know how much it really costs until you don't have enough of it.
.... The I began to think. Perhaps if there were different power suppliers who could offer different contracts with different levels of redundancy. ... no not possible as we are all on the same grid.
But hang on! It wouldn't that hard to cut off people being supplied by one particular generator like "Scottish Renewables" ... indeed, those people wanting wind, could be given all the power they need .... when the wind blows ... and none when it doesn;t and all the rest of us could use the same electricity network and have constant gas.
Then the realisation dawned, that far from being a joke that is probably what we are going to be offered post independence referendum. Cheaper bills .... sorry, not so much hiked up bills ... if we agree to have our lights turn off. the oven stop with a half baked chicken, the fridge start to defrost.
@ Mike
I quite like the idea in principle that you could choose to have two electricity suppliers, one reliant on wind and the other on fossil, at a domestic level.
How it should work is that the electricity price you get from the wind supplier should contain a standing charge reflective of the cost of capital (enormous), plus usage charges based on the cost of the fuel (low). Most of the time your wind supplier would supply nothing, and you'd have to have your fossil supply kick in. At that point you'd pay more than everyone else who uses fossil alone because your unpredictable extra demand costs more to meet.
The result would be that people with two suppiers would pay a fortune, those with one would pay less and could decide which was cheaper, all wind or all fossil.
Market forces would then determine whether fossil survived the challenge of green energy.
I should like to choose from many suppliers each competing for my business on the bases of price, quality and continuity of supply. I should like to be able to change my supplier at will. I may even elect to pay a premium to be supplied from what I regard as a more ethical source. This is how I buy my shampoo.
Does that dreadful hack, Polly Toynbee;
a) actually get paid for the rubbish she writes?
b) who, other than some sad "Guardianistas", actually read it?
c) Does she pay tax?- enquiring minds want to know!
RoyFOMR: "OT but Jo Nova appears to be back up with a new site!"
Still "SUSPENDED" in Melbourne, Roy -- but you say "new site" so perhaps you have a new URL you could post?
this top headline yesterday on a local Murdoch newspaper website was a little deceptive. Griffith University "students" (which btw is another hotbed of CAGW) turned out to be 4 Griffith students going on a Walk for Solar, and the "Youth" in the headline were AYCC and their Youth Decide. the entire purpose of the piece has nothing to do with "comment" but is meant to encourage youth?/anyone? to click the link to AYCC's Youth Decide where u pretend to "vote" but are actually shilling for the renewable industries:
23 Sept: Gold Coast Bulletin: Youth comment on renewable energy
GRIFFITH University students are having their say on the Federal Government's renewable energy policies.
Youth Decide, run by the Australian Youth Climate Coalition, gives the next generation the chance to vote on energy legislation.
The legislation stipulates that by 2020 Australia must derive 20 per cent of its electricity from renewable sources.
"This policy is being reviewed and it's being opposed by businesses like Origin Energy who want it reduced or scrapped," spokeswoman Brittany Laidlaw said...
The Australian Youth Climate Coalition is the largest youth-run organisation in the country, and has more than 80,000 (???) members...
http://www.goldcoast.com.au/article/2012/09/23/438550_gold-coast-news.html
Australian Youth Climate Coalition: Our Sponsors
Gold Sponsor
Purves Environmentaal Fund
Bronze Sponsors
Australian Ethical Invertment & Superannuation
Aussie Renewables
http://aycc.org.au/
Purves Environmental Fund:
The Sydney-based Fund was established in August 2004 by Robert Purves AM, who is committed to making an impact for a better environment.
Robert is a businessman and an environmentalist. He is currently President of WWF Australia and a former board member of WWF International. Robert is also a founding member of The Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists, Chairman of Sustainable Business Australia, a Patron of the Lizard Island Research Station and a Governor of Australian Youth Climate Coalition.
http://www.purvesenvirofund.org.au/
Gemma Borgo-Caratti
I am currently working as the Business Development Director at the Australian Youth Climate Coalition.
My passion for climate change campaigning started when I was working on a research project for the Centre for Policy Development where I became frustrated reading about the lack of money invested in renewable energy and the huge amount of money invested in coal subsidies. This then lead me to study Climate Change in my final semester of my degree at UTS where I learnt about the injustices occurring in the developing world already from climate change effects and knew that I must take action and stand up for people whose voices were not being heard.
Since volunteering at the AYCC I have taught hundreds of young people about climate science, how to communicate with people about this issue and how to start a group in your local area and see climate action in your suburb...
(presumably UTS) University of Technology
BA, Communications
http://au.linkedin.com/pub/gemma-borgo-caratti/45/419/ab9
this crowd will exploit young and old!
Roger
It's a temporary site
http://bn.joannenova.com.au/wordpress/
Still there from my iPhone one minute ago
an email with stunning computer-generated pictures, has been doing the rounds for a couple of years about a "Solar Tower" designed by Zurich-based RAFAA Architecture that "WILL BE the welcome symbol" for the 2016 Rio Olympic Games. it has been exposed as a hoax on Hoax-Slayer (in 2010) and Snopes (in 2011) yet the following is in the Murdoch press in Australia last month, and originally had the requisite Solar Ads below the story:
2 Aug: Daily Telegraph Australia: Designers hope waterfall skyscraper will power 2016 Olympics and city of Rio
Designed by Zurich-based RAFAA Architecture & Design, the gigantic Energy-Generating Waterfall Skyscraper features a large solar system to generate power during the day...
According to RAFFA’s website excessive energy will be pumped as seawater into a tower. By night, the water can be released again; with the help of turbines to create more power.
Its designers hope the tower will not only create power for the use in the Olympic Village as well as the city of Rio (ALARM BELLS SHOULD BE RINGING?)
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/travel/news/designers-hope-waterfall-skyscraper-will-power-2016-olympics-and-city-of-rio/story-e6frezi0-1226440462515
yet this Middle East website could manage to do some checking, even tho they were impessed by the idea:
12 May 2012: ClimateControl-ME: B. Surendar: The tower on Cotonduba
A few weeks ago, an e-mail started circulating about the Solar City Tower that would be erected on the island of Cotonduba, at the entrance of Rio de Janeiro for the 2016 Summer Olympic Games...
The design for the tower was by a Zurich-based architecture firm, called RAFAA. On hearing about the e-mail, RAFAA quickly issued a statement indicating that the e-mail was misleading and that the design was nothing but a proposal it had submitted for a competition in 2009. In the statement, RAFAA also said the design was at an initial stage, with no guarantee of being translated to reality. The firm added that it had encountered technical hurdles; in addition, it said it had not arrived at an estimation of the energy consumption of the structure...
http://www.climatecontrolme.com/en/2012/05/tower-cotonduba/
2010: Hoax-Slayer: Olympic Tower 2016 - Rio Solar City Tower Design
In response to my enquiry about the project, Rafael Schmidt, the director at RAFAA, replied with the following information:
Dear Brett Christensen,
Please let me first clarify the state of the project. The Solar City Tower was a proposal for a competition in 2009. As it had drawn great media attention in the last months, we decided to contact the President of Rio 2016 again. We don't have any confirmation from the local authorities so far and don't know if this project will ever happen! Therefore the design is in a very early stage and we are facing lots of technical problems. Even though we have done some research in this field, a solid cost estimation or an energy consumption of this building is not possible at the moment.
Best Regards
Rafael Schmidt
Director
http://www.hoax-slayer.com/solar-city-tower-2016-olympics.shtml
and yet Murdoch is still criticised incessantly by "Youth Coalitions" and their CAGW manipulators for being a CAGW denier! if only they knew, he was their best friend!
Apologies if this is a repost
Roger
It's a temporary site
http://bn.joannenova.com.au/wordpress/
Still there from my iPhone one minute ago
Nuclear should indeed get its costs down.
As Professor Bernard Cohen pointed out http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/chapter9.html between 1970 & 1983 reactor costs went up an average of 10 times while inflationm (on $s) sent other prices up 2.2 times. This regulatpry ratcheting continues. This means that, at the very minimum, 75% of nucleasr cost unnecesary government regulation.
If government believes nuclear costs should be lower government should lower them.
This would mean that electricity prices could be reduced to not more than 7% pf what they currently are if the market were allowed to operate. Since there is a close correlation between electricity use & GDP that would undoubtedly geyt us out of recession and into the sort of growth China manages - or more.
I'd ignore the Guardian, want to know how deperate they are with thier 50,000 only figures and the BBC probably having to stop paying them vast sums of money now the bloke at the top has changed:
http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/david-leigh-impose-%C2%A32-broadband-levy-save-quality-newspapers
Let it die the irellivent death it deserves.
"Fury over wind farm tax break calls "
"Professor Jack Ponton, a university emeritus professor of engineering who is leading the Save Lauderdale anti-wind farm campaign, was reacting to a call from one of Scotland’s leading property law specialists.
Alan Cook, from international law firm Pinsent Masons, says reducing stamp duty on land leases would help energy firms save hundreds of thousands of pounds and make Scotland a more desireable location in which to do business. "
http://www.thesouthernreporter.co.uk/community/fury-over-wind-farm-tax-break-calls-1-2535786
O the wonderful opportunities that false markets present!
Roy, Roger: Last Tweet from Jo was that jonova was 'lost' and that they were endeavouring to move the site to a new host.
Whatever happens, I do hope she and her team are able to find out how and who dunnit.
Pray tell, what are those regulations? Don't tell me it's about safety related regulations such as safe handling, transportation and storage of nuclear waste for, uhm, 300.000 years; we know that already.
I want to know about the government regulations that led to 10 fold increase in reactor costs between 1970-83. No, really, I don't; I've visited the link you've given. I don't buy into 'regulatory ratcheting', 'regulatory turbulence' or labor costs arguments. It is not like government regulation ever stopped them from making profit despite the ten-fold increase in costs, but I'd like to think government regulations has at least ensured that there's not been a Chernobyl or Fukushima or a repeat of the Three Mile Island in any of the major cities in the West.
The biggest economic obstacle before the spread of nuclear power is not government regulations but the capitalist pigs who refuse to insure nuclear power plants against accidents. The cost of insurance is so high that it makes investment in nuclear energy worthless ... or so they say to readers in places other than BH.
The nuclear industry want the government to take on the liabilities in case of an accident, or somehow, by way of more regulation perhaps, make the insurance premiums on nuke cheaper. The pigs want the government to take the risks while they, the pigs, take the profits.
That doesn't sound like free-market stuff to me.
Sorry, the comment above was in response to Neil Craig (1:24PM).
@sHx Government regulation prevents tsunamis? Really?
Government regulation does not prevent tsunami but it can prevent a nuclear power station being built at the first place.
I think the Bish was meaning market rules rather than all rules and so safety would be assured hehe.
Why dont we just let nuclear wind down for a while? We know we have Thorium coming along and it is not as if we would be short of fossil fuels to keep us warm until Thorium arrived. This country would do very very well with coal and gas, neither of which would need to be imported.
Germany, China, India and the USA all use coal and gas with no Carbon Capture & Storage and so there can be no objections if we do the same.
I do of course inhabit a fantasy world where logic and justice exist.
sHx, if you think that the insurance industry is so unreasonable in its attitude to nuclear, why not set up your own Lloyds syndicate, perhaps with other like-minded BH members, and offer to insure them. Just remember that your liability will be unlimited (ie. including the shirt off your back) - but you won't mind that because according to you the risks are not real but are just grubby business types trying to screw everyone.
Don Keiller: Does she pay tax?- enquiring minds want to know! I don't read PT or agree with her (although on religion she is spot on), but I like her a whole lot more than I like you. What is this rubbish questioning the morality of someone you disagree with? That sort of dirt can be thrown around cheaply but highly is distasteful. We could try, "who is this Andrew Montford, does he pay tax?- enquiring minds want to know!". Does that sound like the level you want others to stoop to?
[Snip - manners]
[Calm down]
Bitbucket,
What, you mean like building hundreds of windmills in the paddock next to your house?
Or are some forms of power production more tolerable next to your home simply based on your ideology?
Mailman
BitBucket, dude, you got me completely wrong. And I don't think getting something right is why hang around here, troll.
Sep 24, 2012 at 3:24 PM Dung
I'd like to see a summary of thorium reactor technology that is not accompanied by the odour of over-enthusiastic advocacy.
In particular, I'd like to know about the production of long-live actinides and fission products produced per MWh output, relative to the production in conventional nuclear reactors.
.
Snotrocket
I found JoNova simply by clicking on my bookmarked link which transfers automatically (at least in Firefox).
Since I've found her as have Peter Walsh and Phillip Bratby and about 25 others I'm surprised there's a problem.
BitBucket
You are out of date. All new investors at Lloyds must invest on a limited liability basis.
https://www.aianalysts.com/invest.php?page=method
What is remarkable about this Telegraph article is not so much the obvious truths revealed but the author of it. Is Ian Marchant, CEO of Scottish & Southern, a lone voice among his peers with all others prepared to go along with central planning and guaranteed margins?
Martin A
I am not a scientist, I dont have a degree (damn my girlfriend) and all my knowledge is gleaned from the internet and so I should add that caveat to all my comments :)
Trying to find a response to your post I learnt a new word hehe.
Power-technology.com
The attraction for the likes of India are the several major advantages that thorium can claim over uranium. Thorium is seen by some as the nuclear fuel of the future. For a start, there is much more thorium than uranium in the Earth's crust, and all the thorium mined can be used in a reactor (compared to below 1% of natural uranium). Thorium fuel cycles also produce much less plutonium and other radioactive transuranic elements than uranium fuel cycles.
Transuranic means "having an atomic number greater than uranium" and it is these waste products that have the long half lives that make them such a problem.
There is a short discussion of Thorium reactors (from about 4 minutes) on the Economist Babbage blog: http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2012/09/babbage-september-19th-2012
It refers to a new report from the NNL (http://www.nnl.co.uk)
Just to be pedantic - and to educate a few buckets: it's Lloyd's. Lloyds is a bank.
Thanks Mike...I just clicked again on my bookmark and now Jonova comes up - although it says: "Not there yet..."
Re: Jo Nova website.
Read up on DNS and how it works. It may take days before it makes its way completely throughout the system (Internet).
Blame ISP and Microsoft who cache data LONG after it has officially expired.
So here's a novel idea. How about we do away with the rules and regulations and see who is really the cheapest?
Brilliant, but along the same lines as, how about we figure out how much we really pay in income taxes, sales taxes, VAT, council taxes etc., net of deductions, and then hit us with one simplified consumption tax? Get rid of all the tax lawyers and accountants, all those administrators and managers of administrators, make things transparent.
Not going to happen, either: too much transparency does not allow the political manoevering that our political system feels is necessary. Plus, accurate knowledge would encourage us to rise up and unseat our "betters".
You know it would.
Energy issues are strongly influenced by the Green agenda. No Tricks Zone has a post that shows how the Greens in Germany do very well in the polls when turnout is low. They are helped by the support of scientific opinion and the mass media. The result is a massive influence on policies that are not actually wanted by the majority of voters.
Much of this sounds depressingly familiar.
Further to my comment at 5:56, the GWPF are reporting that Toyota are pulling out of electric cars. Big business publicly deviating from 'savintheplanet' - how refreshing!
Empirical data?
How un-scientificous
BitBucket
Not sure why but I listened to The Economist discussion you linked about Thorium, The presenter did his best to ridicule and trash Thorium but the guy being interviewed seemed to attempt to be even handed. At the end of the short discussion the presenter compared those who championed Thorium to those who championed Nikola Tesla as someone who invented great things but never got recognition, ie they failed.
It brought to mind a really good rock band I sadly never got to see live who were called Tesla.
Sep 24, 2012 at 5:59 PM Dung
"much less plutonium and other radioactive transuranic elements"
I've often read this "much less" statement. Sounds like hand-waving to me. I've never seen it quantified - at least in a way I can make sense of.
(I think thorium reactors also produce nasty actinides with atomic number a bit less than 92.)
What I'd like to see is a table of the number of becquerels of radioactivity remaining after 10, 100, 1000, 10,000, 100,000, 1,000,000 years for each MWh produced in:
(a) a uranium reactor
(b) a thorium reactor.
Surely this, or something similar, must have been calculated somewhere?
BitBucket, dear, dear-knickers in a twist?
Just remember what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
Thus is it "OK" in your World-view for the greens to contantly smear skeptics with the "Funded by Big Oil" lie, but not "OK" for me to have the temerity to suggest that a well-paid Green hack, may not be paying all their tax.
After all many in the green-leaning Beeb (and possibly the Gruniard (sic)), minimise their tax through dodgy employment contracts.
Also don't forget to take your meds.
Martin A
I remembered that Robert Zubrin (Merchants of Despair) was an atomic physicist so I rechecked the book. No figures of the kind you were looking for. However he makes some interesting predictions about how much of various resources are available on the earth.
Zubrin reckons that if our technology continues to develop at the current rate then the earth's Thorium will power us for 100,000,000,000 years ^.^
Not bad as a plan B anyway hehe.
Wiki says only that Thorium produces between 10 and 10,000 times less dangerous radioactive waste.
Thorium still has the advantage that the process is inherently safe, no melt downs are possible.