Bishop Hill Today's energy prognostications
Aug 15, 2013 Energy: gas Energy: wind The shale gas story is still getting a fair amount of media play. In the Times (reproduced at GWPF), Matt Ridley looks at the most common scare stories put round by the green movement in their ceaseless struggle to find some mud that they can get to stick.
In the meantime, Zoe Williams in the Guardian looks at energy policy as a whole. This is interesting stuff, because it gets near to sensible at times, which is not something one finds oneself saying about that particular publication very often.
...all energy production causes environmental damage. Even the people who love the look of windfarms have to admit to the scenic damage caused by the roads and surrounding infrastructure they need. Coal mines, nuclear facilities … which of these things could you say looked pretty? An opposition whose fundamental principle is, "energy from anywhere, unless it's near me" is just individualism dressed up as environmentalism.
But it's not all good. Having admitted that renewables are not ready for prime time...
the lowest carbon fuels are renewables; they're not yet ready to supply all the country's energy;
...she then concludes that we should invest in them. In her view, we should spend money on gas to ensure that the lights stay on, and continue to throw money at wind power, which she admits doesn't deliver the goods.
Reader Comments (98)
It's a start, your Grace. A start...
Zoe Williams is an extremely poor interviewee on TV ( which she does a lot on political shows)seems to have even worse dress sense than me, but seems highly rated by the Beeb. If she is at least showing a modicum of common sense then then it is a good thing. Last night's "Summer Nights" programme on Radio 4 on the Green movement showed that it is in tatters, with opinions as diverse as in any religion. The realistic greens such as Mark Lynas mirrored many of the views expressed on this site and he should no longer be described as a "green".
It is good to read her at least beginning to ask the right questions. When she gets as far as questioning all the anti-CO2 dogma that has been written in stone, she will be doing Guardian readers a great service.
I may, or may not, vote for a party on the left or on the right. I will never vote for the Liberals again while their collective insanity on this matter is probably double that of the other two parties combined.
It is not a question of "left" or "right" for me. It is that global warming is mild, almost certainly beneficial, probably not much caused by carbon dioxide, and the highly improbable cataclysmic prognostications still show no sign of appearing. The apocalypse is a phantom-pregnancy. But the Cider-with-Rosie environmentalists wish us to hell in a hand cart, just to assuage their post-industrial guilt.
".........the lowest carbon (dioxide) fuels are renewables"
But - until there is conclusive proof that additional plant food is detrimental to mother earth & its inhabitants, why waste money & resources trying to minimise it?
Classic Guardian approach to fiscal policy - given the choice between spending £1 on A or spending it on B they will always choose to spend it on both.
Bjørn Lomborg has an interesting take on renewables here:
http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/the-falling-share-of-renewables-in-global-energy-production-by-bj-rn-lomborg
The UK's use of wind power peaked in 1804 !
all energy production causes environmental damage
This rhetoric is truly tiresome and utterly absurd. She should stop eating.
Most renewables don't reduce carbon dioxide emissions. That is just a myth put out by the troughers and believed by ignorant politicians (those that aren't troughers as well). Nuclear fission and ultimately nuclear fusion would reduce emissions. But we don't need to reduce emissions, so it is all irrelevant anyway.
@Manfred
Agree.
People like her regard any change to "the environment" as "damage", which means the only logical solution is for humans not to exist at all. Yet none of them ever seem to want to set an example to the rest of us.
Aug 15, 2013 at 10:44 AM | Phillip Bratby
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This is the point.
As far as I understand matters, there has not been the single closue of a conventional powered generator any where in the world becauyse it was made reduncant by the use of wind. That tells yopu a lot.
The fact is that Wind does not reduce CO2 by the time one takes into account all the high CO2 associated with the manufacture of the trubines, the individual concrete bases, construction of infrastructure in remote places, coupling to the grid, the use of gas powered generators for backup and the use of diesel standby generators for back up and load smoothing. So what is the point of Wind if there is no net reduction in CO2? It certainly is not that it is more efficient, cheaper or more reliable compared to other more conventional methods of power generation so if it does not achieve a reduction in CO2 emissions it has no raison d'etre.
The same is so of Biomass. Biomass (because of its low calorific value) produces more CO2 than burning coal. Drax is reducing the number of its burners/furnaces from 6 (perhaps 7) to 3 and converting them to burn Biomass. When this is done, Drax will be emitting the same amount of CO2 as it did when it was using 6 (or may be 7) furnaces for power generation, and will be be producing far less power than it did when it was burning coal. Factually, Biomass results in an increase in global CO2 emissions, not a reduction. If one wishes to increase the carbon sink then leave virgin forest alone, cut back on de-forestation and heck plant some more forests. The UK has undergone huge deforestation these past 500 years and it was only the use of coal that saved such little forestry that the UK now enjoys. The UK could legitimately benefit from a substantial forestry programme (it has plenty of available land) restoring some of the forests of old. If this was rolled out, one could continue to burn coal and still obtain the same contemporaneous carbon neutral position since the new forests would off-set the CO2 from burning coal. This would be far more environmentally friendly and would result in a n actual reduction (as opposed to a slight of hand theoretical reduction) in the amount of CO2 that the UK actually and factually emits. Ernergy would be a lot cheaper.
In 1926, H G Wells wrote of the future energy shortages and of a society ruled by the elite who owned the land on which were the windmills; the poor were herded into the cities to die from energy poverty.
By then he was old and reactionary. The elite were a derivative of the Eloi in 'The Time Machine,', written in 1895. The city dwellers were the Morlochs
It seems that the Fabian philosophy behind Common Purpose intends to create the reactionary society but hides it under Marxist ideology to get the willing dupes like Zoe Williams onside.
The evidence is the windmill cult: Michael Fallon did us all a favour a few weeks' ago by publicising the STOR strategy, 15 GW distributed generating capacity hidden from sight, to keep the lights on. I don't think these people set out to make the windmills use more fossil fuel than just CCGTs with no windmills, but that is the net effect. Behind it all is Agenda 21: to create an industrial underclass of which I am one!
Poor Zoe Williams. She is not the brightest button on the tunic, and has some strange ideas. As anyone knows who watches her review the papers on Sky News. I fear she will never doubt the CAGW doctrine, but for her to even move a little outside of the green zone is to be welcomed.
Zoe Williams attended the independent Godolphin and Latymer School girls school and read Modern History at Lincoln College, Oxford . . .
The Wind Follies are not built to provide energy, they serve an all-together different need. And therefore should still be funded, even if it does add to fuel poverty through big government wealth redistribution...Or possibly because it does lead to big government wealth redistribution.
If we actually want to subsidise "alternative" fuels and there is a case for doing so, the way, as with most such things, would be X-Prizes.
Give substantial prizes for technological progress that reduces to cost of generating capacity or increases its efficiency (limited to low CO2 if we must).
Had 10% of what is put into subsidising windmills had been put into that we would probably, by now, have solar power efficiency increased to make it competitive, "cold fusion" commercially, ocean thermal working competitively at least in the tropics and solar power satellites, all CO2 free except ocean thermal which, because it stimulates plankton growth, is CO2 negative power.
Capell, does that count as evidence that she is the brightest button or not. The fact that she got to Oxford merely shows that our two so-called top universities are packed with public school kids and her modern history degree gives her no more clout on this issue than the man on the Clapham omnibus.
AlecM,
STOR and fracking are ideal bedfellows. The backup energy generation could be fueled by shale gas produced on site.
Can’t argue with that – have you seen the damage caused by the energy acquisition of a caterpillar?
Actually, perhaps I can argue. “Environmental damage”? Is it possible to damage the environment? It is possible to change it, to make it less hostile for some species, more hostile for others, but… damage it? Whatever is done to it, it is still “the environment”, just different.
Perhaps they are – once you have discounted the carbon used and emitted in their construction, emplacement and servicing. And what makes these mythical fuels “renewable”? They are no more nor less renewable than oil or gas; once broken, they are replaced (at great "cost" in carbon – again!). Remove the back-up of “non-renewables”, and they become nothing but a blight on the landscape.
One has to wonder what airy-fairy world these people actually inhabit.
@gareth: why not dispense with the Grid-conneced windmills >10% demand and minimse electical power cost?
In this binary debate I wonder where nuclear fission fits in.
At least the comments below the guardian article are generally positive apart from a few fact-challenged, anti-everything loonies. If you assume that wind power can provide base load power by some magic hitherto unknown to us then you may well assume that gas is not necessary. For realists however it is necessary under every possible scenario and most especially for the Greenpeace CHP plan. I had some hopes for cheap solar panels but they were dashed by the EU tariffs on Chinese imports. For wind power I don't see us ever going beyond 15% of the total required and it seems an expensive luxury just to make a few luvvies feel good about themselves when the run their spoilt brats to school in Chelsea tanks.
The idea about the UK acting alone in reducing her 2% to 1% needs to be properly thought through by these "intellectuals". Nobody is going to be led by the UK. That is just a snobby delusion of the white mans burden.
I dont recall any debate or official statistics for accidents and fatalities in specific sectors of the renewable energy industry as a comparison to conventional equivalents per gigawatt of power generation. I dont know the answer, perhaps its a question for Lord Donoughue.
We know that government H&S imposes rigorous reporting standards and monitoring of industrial accidents, but the official statistics on public view lump the generation sectors together so much as to make comparisons of the specific sectors impossible. It is however clear from these official stats for example that the waste/recycling sector has high fatality stats. I do not know how reliable unofficial compilations of wind accidents are, but if the following has credence it suggests they are very significant
http://www.caithnesswindfarms.co.uk/page4.htm
"...she then concludes that we should invest in them. In her view, we should spend money on gas to ensure that the lights stay on, and continue to throw money at wind power, which she admits doesn't deliver the goods."
Well in fact, she only admits that they are not ready yet. The idea is that the more we spend the less the per unit cost. Whether we are getting any benefit from wind depends on who you believe.
eg You might read stuff like this:
"Electricity generated from renewables rose 7 percent from 2011 to more than 14,600 gigawatt-hours, the Scottish government said today in an e-mailed statement. Nearly 39 percent of the region’s total electricity needs came from renewables in 2012, enough to power every home in Scotland."
Source:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-28/scottish-wind-power-generation-surged-19-to-a-record-in-2012.html
If true then wind has already made a difference because we are not building any more hydro AFAIK. If not then what is the truth? I'm skeptical but there are very few unspun facts out there. I'd like some unbiased information.
Radical Rodent / richard verney
Have you still not understood (I speak as a friend here :-) ) — reducing CO2 is only a front; it's a ploy; it's an excuse.
It is now (I think) fairly well established that CO2 is not the demon that we were led to believe it was a decade ago. It may well be true that the so-called climate scientists of that time thought that, because they had vaguely heard of Arrhenius and his hypotheses about CO2 and because they couldn't get their models to work properly, that CO2 must the missing element, or perhaps I should say 'compound'.
More recent research and nature's refusal to co-operate is proving them wrong.
The environmental activists, on the other hand, are still in love with CO2 as their best option to impoverish the western world which has been their ambition of decades as the pronouncements of all the envirogroups from FoE through Greenpeace and the Sierra Club to the Club of Rome (which is admittedly more interested in population control but only because of the "damage" we are doing) unequivocally prove.
Their distortions and lies and the genuine (as opposed to mythical) damage that they plan for humanity need to be rebutted at every opportunity. Arguing about whether this or that energy source emits more or less CO2 is to miss the point.
RR
I very much agree with you that "damaging" the environment is virtually impossible. Man has been changing the environment since he first discovered the stone axe and fire but "damaging" it? By what definition, for heaven's sake?
Poor Zoe Williams. She is not the brightest button on the tunic, and has some strange ideas. As anyone knows who watches her review the papers on Sky News. I fear she will never doubt the CAGW doctrine, but for her to even move a little outside of the green zone is to be welcomed.
Aug 15, 2013 at 11:35 AM | Peter Stroud
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Yesterday, during the paper review, she started postulating on the possibility that sea levels could rise by 5 metres, quickly reduced to 1 metre. She did not get her point out, so I do not know what she was seeking to imply. I think that she was trying to argue that in theory anything is possible. I do not know how that argument stacks up in the light of the impossible. If something is impossible, not even from a theoretical standpoint is it possible.
I cannot recall having heard her make any sensible comment during the course of the paper reviews which I have seen. At times, I just do not know what planet she comes from, but no doubt to the Guardian followers, it all makes perfect sense.
Y-a-a-a-a-w-n
(Not aimed at you, richard!)
JamesG, "Nobody is going to be led by the UK"
I agree. It seems slightly odd that on the one hand the claims have it that UK has the best wind resources in the World, and on the other hand we are supposed to lead the World by our example. Doesn't seem quite fair somehow.
JamesG
Re Hydro where would you build a significant amount of new hydro?
Pharos,
Your comment above about the risks to life in the wind turbine industry (human life, that is - let's just ignore the birds and the bats!) brings to mind a sign at the O'Hare airport a number of years ago. The message is dated, but still pertinent:
"More people have died in Ted Kennedy's car than in all of the commercial nuclear power accidents in the U.S."
When it was very windy did not teams have to sleep in windmills and pour water over bearings to stop them overheating and the structure catch fire?
Renewables will never be able to supply current energy needs - she lacks some basic physics knowledge. Nuclear is the only low carbon "fuel" which actually could do it !
Sorry to be O/T but is there a problem with JoNova's site?
I've been trying to connect for several hours with no luck.
Anyone else having the same problem or is it just me?
.......as you were.
Sorry, himself has logged into my UK VPN and not told me, Jo's site is obviously a bit sensitive to possibly dodgy VPN's and has blocked me.
All sorted.
Irresponsible responsibility.
The echo of alarmist trumpets, fills the pages of the Guardian rag, of irresponsible hyped scientific illiteracy.
The shock hacks of human induced climate catastrophe; Carrington, Hickman, Moonbat et al and up the rear end of these clowns, following in the wake and hanging onto the coattails of the aforementioned snake oil pedlars, are the dregs and more inane rambling bilge from such as arts grad - Zoe Williams.
Yes, "responsibility" - not something that those [above] scribbling their doctrinaire and pious platitudinous efforts in the pages of the Guardian know much about. Indeed, sifting for some trace, a vestige of any responsible factual reportage throughout the whole of this newspaper, causes the unfortunate reader much dismay and is a forlorn quest.
The Guardian fully plays its part and is shamefully proud of its role in winding up, setting them to tick - all of the great unwashed, they will be down there at Balcombe this weekend - the rent-a-mob foot soldiery of anti common sense.
It must also be noted that the Guardian is not alone in fermenting the academic laxative of puerile irresponsibility.
Since the early sixties and seventies on university campuses and as they graduated from humanities faculties to the classroom, children have been agitprop lab rats, become propagandized by many who really should be objective but are most definitely anything but.
The usual crowd naturally, the BBC, a decrepit left wing biased education system, infested with pedagoguery and of course not forgetting the present administration and the previous green ultras of Miliband's eco-fascists must take responsibility too.
Zoe Williams, a bit part player but still in small part responsible.
JamesG,
I haven't seen any recent figures for Scottish "renewables" electricity generation, but a while ago I saw some from circa 2008 which were rather misleading for the unwary. They appeared to classify pumped hydro-storage (from Nuclear!) in with "renewables".
As far as I'm aware, those nuclear power stations are still generating the largest fraction of electricity consumed in Scotland, followed, I recall, by either gas or coal. (For the record, I am in favour of nuclear power).
There are probably some more informed readers here at BH who could give a better description of the current situation.
The illustration for the Zoe Williams article is amusingly misleading. It should be more like this simulation.(It would have been better but my Big Oil cheque hasn't arrived this month...)
AlecM,
That goes without saying! STOR is useful for other things though. Time was when there was ample surplus conventional power generating capacity but through poor policy choices by our governments the lack of investment in bog standard power generating margins are being shaved smaller and smaller. STOR is planned to help cover what used to be covered by that spare capacity - scheduled maintenance and unexpected losses.
STOR is also quicker than a conventional power station in covering for the most disrupting aspect of wind power - the sudden loss of electrical output you get when turbines switch off to protect themselves in high winds. If it wasn't for windmills there wouldn't be any need for such a rapid backup system. It's a solution to a bad policy decision. Having a surplus of conventional power worked to an acceptable degree for decades before wind started getting added to the network.
SandyS: "Hydro where would you build a significant amount of new hydro?"
Dam CHeddar Gorge and all the other deep scenic gorges in the UK. Why should only windy hills be ruined?
The political naivety of the flock knows no limit. So the warmists are now becoming ever so reasonable? Mon oeuil, as we say. They are simply smelling the smoke coming from a different direction and do a face about to keep the job. Wouldn't you?
Bruce Aug 15, 2013 at 7:18 PM ,
Think before wittily talking piffle.
I know it's nonsense
You know it's nonsense...
But we already have to fight to save the Severn form a total barrage (as opposed to tidal pools that can be desilted).
You've just destroyed every gorge in the country!
The muppets only care for the subsidies not the energy.
And they assuredly don't care for the environment.
Matt Ridley's piece is extremely well written. He picks off the fictional fracking scares with hard fact like strokes of Zorro's rapier. Pity its paywalled in the Times. If the oil industry, (let alone DECC who should be confronting this groundless agit-nonsense robustly), wasn't so frit to defend Cuadrilla, (there but for the grace of God go we) and making themselves invisible, they would be funding it as a full page spread in every daily national. Instead we have the BBC stoking up the protest daily down in Sussex here every single evening on the main regional news.
Bruce has a point. Damming all the scenic gorges might be a bridge too far for the zealots. But anyway, it probably wouldnt work, the gorges are mostly karstic limestone and prone to leakage, unlike shale gas wells.
I'm constantly amazed that there is still groups of people that think if we just throw enough money at the mating of 19th century technology (Electrical Generation) to 13th century technology (Wind Towers) we will some how end up with the energy producer of the 21st century.
Pharos - there are a few studies that show the relative deaths per TWh of generation. I did have a table somewhere that summarised this (used it in one of the children's school projects) but can't find it just now. You will find tables and links here:
http://www-958.ibm.com/software/data/cognos/manyeyes/visualizations/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-sources
I'm a fan of Mr. Ridley's, but the following statement raises questions: "Only ten hectares (25 acres) of oil or gas drilling pads can produce more energy than the entire British wind industry."
I'm open to the proposition that the gas reachable by an oil-drilling pad can be exhausted and that its production capability can therefore be expressed in terms of energy rather than power. But expressing the wind industry's production capacity in terms of energy rather than power presupposes a finite lifetime. I suppose it's true enough that the current wind industry's existing plant will eventually wear out. But if that's Mr. Ridley's basis for referring to the wind industry's production capacity in terms of energy rather than power, it would have been easier on the reader for him to say so explicitly--and perhaps state the lifetime he's assuming.
"the lowest carbon fuels are renewables; they're not yet ready to supply all the country's energy;"
Zoe Williams is correct, but Mr Montford misses the point. Renewables are not intended in the short and medium term as a complete replacement for fossil fuel electricity generation.
The aim is a reduction in CO2 production. This is achieved by reducing the amount of fossil fuel burned. Each kJ generated by renewables is a kJ which does not have to be produced by burning coal, oil or gas.
Cumbrian Lad
Thanks for this. Never seen any figures before. It would be nice to have official UK stats released though. Nuclear seems to romp home on safety. Deep irony.
@ entropic Man.
That is not really true.
- Biofuels are 98% reliable on fossil fuel for their production and emit other GHGs - net reduction in CO2 ~ zero
- Wind relies on fossil fuels to forge turbines, concrete, access roads etc. To balance demand gas stations run at lower efficiency increasing costs and carbon emissions. Thier lifetime is 15-20 years max before replacement. - net reduction in CO2 ~ rather small.
- PV farms require large amounts of fossil fuels and rare earths for their production and degrade rapidly in efficiency over 10 years. - net reduction in CO2 small.
From the same GWPF bulletin:
Conservative and Labour MPs in Lancashire are joining forces to demand more money for their constituents in return for “fracking rights” ... [they] want more than the current offer of £100,000 of community benefits per well drilled and the proposed 1 per cent share of revenues generated when production starts.
I wonder why MPs don't demand similar terms for "wind rights".
"Renewables are not intended in the short and medium term as a complete replacement for fossil fuel electricity generation."
Oh but they are.Don't mean they will work.
Prattle on about A Zero Carbon Economy.When we get anti matter warp drive engines on starships perhaps.
Clive Best, jamspid
If you are correct, our civilization will collapse when the last available fossil fuels are used up.
> If you are correct, our civilization will collapse when the last available fossil fuels are used up.
Nuclear