Tuesday
Nov262013
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Array awry
Nov 26, 2013 Energy: wind 
The splendid news this morning is that the Atlantic Array, the monster wind farm planned for the Bristol Channel is to be cancelled "because the economics do not stack up".
Much the same could be said of most green initiatives.
Reader Comments (36)
Phil Bratby: The Array Slayer! Rock on!!! Or as they say on other blogs: Props!
I'm not sure why you linked to the Grauniad. Better to link to the horses mouth, RWE here
Array of hope?
Thanks Snotrocket, but I can't claim to be responsible for the death of the scheme.
Copied from unthreaded:
My interview about the Atlantic Array on Radio5 Live can be heard here
It starts at about 01:13:09 and lasts till about 01:15:50.
Not bad I thought for 7.13am.
You can be sure that in the south-west we will be milking it for all it's worth, newspapers and radio.
Press release from Slay the Array yesterday evening.
Excellent news.
The next bit of good news I'm hoping for is long, long jail sentences for the self-righteous Greenpeace scum who tried to bully Russia. Fingers crossed these terrorists all get the full seven year tariff.
"Array awry" has to be the best headline of the year. Maybe add: Hurray.
I linked to the article and looked at some of the comments on Komment macht Frei. Don't do it. You will just get angry/depressed/both.
What is the collective noun for a group of ignorant, uninformed misanthropes with extreme prejudice?
The Beeb meekly repeat's RWE's deliberate misinformation/propaganda that the Array would have provided juice for 'up to 900,000 homes'. Only if the homeowner wanted inconsistently intermittent power.
Great news.
Their excuse is that the sea floor is not as expected and foundations are much more costly. Reality--- subsidies are being cut.
Epimenides - don't take the Guardian readers too seriously, after all what else to Guardian readers do but make silly comments.
The comments in the Guardian are pretty funny, from the intelligence of DrAnanda
"Kill the planet - vote Tory!
Kill the vulnerable - vote Tory!
Kill our childrens future by not only destroying the planet but selling off vital services - vote Tory!
For short term benefits of the already wealthy and long term destruction of what is really important - vote fucking Tory!
And no......Labour are not as bad, not by a country mile."
I wonder if he is allowed out on his own yet?
The bad news this morning is that it's reported, in the Guardian, that
31,100 excess winter deaths in England and Wales in 2012-13 – a 29% increase on the previous winter
Correlation isn't causation but higher fuel bills, the obscenely regressive green taxes, do appear to lead to people dying.
It's called a greenpeace.
Now this is very strange, very strange indeed. I thought we'd been told that the cost of off-shore wind farms was set to fall as experience and knowledge progressed. I'm sure Ed Davey promised us that (as well as the fact that gas prices was set to triple by 2020). But here we have RWE reporting:
" . . . that the government might have to raise green subsidies – and thus increase bills or the burden on the taxpayer – after admitting that technical difficulties had pushed the price up so far that it could not be justified under the current subsidy regime"
Apparently, accordnig to the article, the problem is "political uncertainty" and "poltical turmoil".
The editors at the Grauniad have a congenital commitment to anti-journalism. The hiding of facts and truth.
Epimenides
Don’t give up on KommentMachtFrei.
Comments are at 600+ on the Guardian article and coming in faster than you can read them. Informed critics are few, but the government’s energy policy is getting attacked from so many directions at once that Cameron’s Big “Cut the Green Crap” Idea will probably come out as the winner. An alliance of enlightened engineers, deep green twitchers and anti-big business reds has the government in disarray. Hooray.
From the Guardian
"UK's green plans dealt blow by shelving of Atlantic Array, which would have powered 1m homes and created thousands of jobs"
This propoganda should be countered every time we read it.
It might have powered up to 1 million homes, some times. Other times it wouldn't power any.
And didn't the Scottish government (or an independent group) recently say that the vast number of green jobs expected hadn't materialised?
Wonder how many Hiroshimas per second this array would have been worth? Perhaps a more appropriate unit would be Trebuchets/s?
Widget required!
In fact there are quite a lot of sceptical comments at CIF. They are easy to spot because they are usually the ones with the most recommendations.
The 'power 1 million homes' lie from the industry is regurgitated without question by almost everyone in the media, for example here from the BBC.
Excellent news.
The next bit of good news I'm hoping for is long, long jail sentences for the self-righteous Greenpeace scum who tried to bully Russia. Fingers crossed these terrorists all get the full seven year tariff.
Nov 26, 2013 at 11:17 AM | Unregistered CommenterJustice4Rinka>>>>>>
It's about time someone cut these ecothugs down to size.
I remember in the 70's when like minded louts decided it was ok to go beyond the law, in the name of 'the cause', and raided mink farms to let loose the animals into the wild with the resultant near extinction of much loved native animals. It's interesting that BBC programs like springwatch never mention these idiots when they lament the loss of wildlife to the now virtually endemic mink.
Nov 26, 2013 at 11:46 AM | Rick Bradford
greenpus, surely? Stinking & redolent, with just a hint of yellow (reminds me of something ........ Oh yes, the Coalition!)
Proper job..!
As an official 'objector' and therefore on their mailing list, I got an e-mail from Dr Carter (CEO of the project) with the official letter attached ('technical' problems; 'not the right time' etc etc) - which gave me the opportunity to reply. I did so - fairly politely - saying how delighted I was that they would not be despoiling this wonderful seascape.
Incidentally - isn't it time the Crown Estate was taken to task for allowing/encouraging these massive offshore developments - and presumably making a healthy profit into the bargain..?
Now we need to get the Jurassic Coast Navitus Array scrapped. This is a real boost to the Challenge Navitus campaign.
http://www.challengenavitus.org.uk/
Evil Denier - aren't they already being referred to as 'GreenP*SS'...?
(That's yellow - so should appeal to Ed Davey...)
I echo Ridley's Hurray and Chambers' Hooray. Who cares about the po-tay-to po-tah-to differences, which will always be with us, the punchline is unequivocal: let's call the whole thing off. Wind farmers and other purveyors of renewable crud, please survey a sneak preview of your doom.
A long and winding road which led to this good news. Well done Phil, Steve and everyone else involved in the campaign.
This, coming on top of the Hinkley C deal, has completely upset the Green Meanies' Christmas.
This is a rare win-win-win outcome - no ugly and possibly dangerous array; no extra taxes and levies; no payments to foreign investors.
The next battle is to stop the proliferation of giant and extremely ugly 50 acre solar farms set in open country that are earmarked for the West country.
Anyone got a less cuddly name for 'wind farms' and 'solar farms'?
tonyb
CONGRATULATIONS ‘SLAY THE ARRAY’ CAMPAIGNERS
SEE WEBSITE MESSAGE: http://www.slaythearray.com/
“SLAIN - CHRISTMAS HAS COME EARLY IN NORTH DEVON THIS YEAR.”
The Greens have a general lack of private sector funding and very little public support for their silly schemes.
It’s looking more and more like an episode from ‘Yes, Prime Minister’ - with Grand Designs gone array.
Fantastic news. I also got the news by email last night via email, as one of the many who submitted objections. Congratulations to those that put in the hard yards.
Fantastic, happy news!
As many have said, now to stop the Jurassic Coast Navitus Array.
And also, as tonyb says, we must stop these solar farms that seem to be the next green initiative du jour and being promoted across some beautiful bits of countryside.
A small correction should have been made to RWE's statement per Capell above:
"technical difficulties had pushed the price up so far that it could not be justified even under the current subsidy regime"
These Green-Nazis,including all the scientists,Pollies and the Al Gores of this Scam,should pay for this.
Solar Farms, Wind Farms, generic name is Subsidy Farms.
I think you are spot on Paul Matthews.
Let's analyse RWE's figure of 900,000 homes, slavishly regurgitated by the BBC: the Array was to have consisted of 2,400 turbines with a capacity of 5MW each, thus 1,200 MW in total. But this represents their maximum capacity but in reality they would deliver about one quarter of this due to wind variations, maintenance, grid payments not to produce, etc.; thus 300 MW on average. The average power consumption of a UK household is 2.25 kW (source: ONS).
So the Array would have supplied 135,000 homes on average (just 15% of the quoted figure).
By comparison, a single modern combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) power station generates 900 MW continuously without interruptions, enough for 400,000 homes, and produces one third of the CO2 emissions that produced by an older coal-fired station per MW.
Happy for readers to check my calculations.
Hooray Array Awry!
And this, kids, is the victory cry of giant-slayers in universal language.