Environmentalists trashing the environment, part 729

As greens steadily persuade governments to intervene more and more often in energy markets, the unintended consequences flow ever thicker and faster. In a delightful example today, we read that chemical companies are trying to deal with the steadily increasing price of energy by installing their own power generation facilities, burning ultra-dirty but dirt-cheap lignite.

For example, a power plant operated by Allessa Chemie using pulverized lignite recently entered service at Fechenheim east of Frankfurt, Germany. A similar facility will be completed next year by the WeylChem chemical company in nearby Griesheim. This plant will be capable of firing lignite, natural gas, or “white powder”, an inexpensive biomass substitute. Three truckloads of finely pulverized lignite per day will be supplied from the Rhineland about 200 km northwest near Cologne, with ash returned for mining reclamation.

And if you thought that green hurdles would be put in their way, you would be quite wrong:

An electronic capacity control limits both plants to 19.5 MW operation, alleviating the need to purchase EU Allowances (EUA) for emissions trading. Public hearings are also required only for capacities exceeding 50 MW, and environmental impact assessments per Directive 2014/52/EU above 300 MW.

Well done greens.

The wisdom of the man in Whitehall

Yesterday came the news that another major power station is to close. Eggborough is a big 'un, its 2GW coal-fired capacity meaning that it generates as much as 4% of the UK's supply. According to the operators, electricity prices have now fallen so far that they cannot operate profitably.

Many might wonder whether this is a big deal or not. After all, businesses close all the time - markets have always weeded out the weak and old and uneconomic. But as the operators also point out, we are on the verge of blackouts this winter because of a lack of supply. Ofgem thinks they can avoid this, but only because the government is paying to have diesel generators on standby and because it is going to pay major industrial users to switch off when margins become unbearably tight.

So Whitehall has managed to get us into the situation where we are going to replace (relatively) efficient coal-fired stations and a productive population with inefficient diesel generators and (potentially) people standing around waiting for the power to come back on.

Such wisdom is not seen every day.

Thank goodness.

In Poland, workers and windfarms sit idle

It's hot in parts of Eastern Europe at the moment - this happens in summertime I believe - and so people are switching on the airconditioning in droves.

In Poland this has produced some pretty major problems because the electricity grid can't supply sufficient electricity to meet demand. It's a familiar story: Poland relies on coal for the bulk of its electricity, but nobody wants to invest in new coal-fired power plants because the market is being rigged in favour of renewables and the EU is going to shut them all down anyway. Meanwhile there is hardly a puff of wind to be found anywhere in Europe so Poland's wind fleet is not helping either.

Click to read more ...

Does Labour hate the North?

I missed this news a couple of days back, but it's quite an interesting as a demonstration of the results of the Climate Change Act and the duplicity of the political classes:

Yorkshire’s coal mine to close

More than 400 people are expected to lose their jobs due to the closure of the Hatfield Colliery in South Yorkshire.

It is closing 14 months earlier than scheduled.

According to trade union Prospect, 420 “high-skilled” jobs and further jobs in the supply chain will be lost.

Click to read more ...

Doom, doom, doom, another one bites the dust

Another coal fired power station is to close - this time imminently. Eon have apparently announced that time is running out for the Ironbridge Power Station in Shropshire; its allowance under the EU's Large Combustion Plant Directive will be exhausted by the end of the year at the latest. A warm summer or a cold autumn could see the curtains being drawn earlier.

Interesting times.

Another power station to close

SSE has announced that it is to close a coal-fired power station at Ferrybridge in West Yorkshire, taking a further 2GW of capacity out of the grid. I'm not sure whether this has been factored into Ofgem's capacity margin calculations already.

The unions, who have been toeing the green line for years, are squealing loudly. If I were one of their members I would be wondering what I'd been paying them for all this time.

Longannet to close

The BBC reports that the Longannet power station is to close in 2016.

Scottish Power has announced plans to close its huge coal-fired power station at Longannet in Fife early next year.

The move comes after the energy firm failed to win a crucial contract from National Grid.

Scottish Power said it was "extremely disappointed" at National Grid's decision.

The Greens are celebrating.

Gina Hanrahan, from WWF Scotland, said National Grid's announcement was "another important step in Scotland's energy transition".

The correspondent who pointed the story out to me (to whom many thanks are due) adds this:

National Grid have given a £15million contract to maintain grid voltage to [the gas-fired station in] Peterhead, but that is for only 385MW of the station's potential 1.2GW. 

Longannet is 1.8GW (2.4 in theory but they don't like to crank it up nowadays).  So a net loss of 1.4GW capacity and a significant loss of grid inertia.  It's maybe not the best analogy, but National Grid are now sailing very close to the wind.

In which computer models collide with the real world

Updated on Mar 17, 2015 by Bishop Hill

Yesterday's post on the trade-off between the need to expand use of fossil fuels in Africa and the wish to restrict carbon dioxide emissions seems to have stirred up a bit of a rumpus. Most commenters from the other side of the debate apparently deemed my question over the wisdom of access restrictions as entirely illegitimate, although the reasons why are somewhat unclear to me.

Firstly, as Roger Pielke Jr pointed out, in the real world there are trade-offs that have to be made.

@ClimateOfGavin Not really-see: 1 http://t.co/oOu02cRHeD 2 http://t.co/WkxXfuwpJK Real world tradeoffs are actually being made @mattwridley

— Roger Pielke Jr. (@RogerPielkeJr) March 16, 2015

The first of the papers contains this:

Click to read more ...

Another disinformation frenzy

Another day, another wave of environmentalist disinformation mindlessly regurgitated by the mainstream media. This time the great green propaganda machine is looking at a report by a pair of NGOs concerning what it calls "subsidies" to oil companies.

The UK Government is providing £750m a year in tax breaks to North Sea oil and gas, despite a pledge five years ago to end fossil fuel subsidies, campaigners said.

A further £414m in public money is going into fossil fuel exploration overseas — from Siberia in Russia to Brazil, India and Nigeria — a report by the Overseas Development Institute and Oil Change International said.

So once again we have the old canard about removal of double taxation being a "subsidy", repeated without question by STV and old BH friends like the Herald's Rob Edwards, the BBC's Roger Harrabin, and of course the Guardian.

Not one of them mentions the double taxation that is charged to oil companies. Not one.

Update on Nov 11, 2014 by Bishop Hill

Remarkably, the Carbon Brief's coverage is less biased in a green direction than the BBC's.

The Old Lady of Eco Street

The Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney first came to the attention of BH readers when, at the time of his appointment, it was noted that his wife Diana was (and is) a fervent supporter of the green movement (and redistribution as well as being against conspicuous consumption).

It's therefore interesting to read today that Mr Carney has told a World Bank seminar that fossil fuels must remain unused:

Mark Carney has re-emphasised his support for the idea that oil companies’ reserves could be stranded assets – still valued by investors, but ultimately going to embody losses.

“The vast majority of reserves are unburnable,” the Bank of England governor said – if the world is to avoid catastrophic climate change.

Thinking of hydrocarbon deposits as stranded assets has gained prominence in recent years, helped by movements like the US student drive to persuade university endowments to disinvest from fossil fuel companies.

Apparently Mr Carney wants companies to report more holistically on their business strategy and "how it relates to stakeholders of all kinds, now and in the future...[so that] all groups can express their view, and influence the allocation of capital and credit today".

Given Mrs Carney's views on equality, and Mr Carney's views on outsiders giving their opinions on allocation of private assets, could the Carney family please allocate some of their (considerable) capital to mine?

Another capacity crunch in 2018/19?

The last 48 hours has brought news of yet more pressure on the electricity grid. The good news is that the year that is currently looking most likely to bring power cuts - the winter of 2015/16 - is unaffected. The bad news is that a second capacity crunch may well be looming in 2018/19.

The first piece of bad news came when the operators of the massive Longannet coal-fired power station in Fife suggested that they will not be bidding to supply electricity in 2018/19:

Scottish Power has decided not to enter the contest to supply energy generating capacity in 2018/19, arguing financial changes are needed to avert the threat of closure.

The National Grid said it had been working closely with the industry and Ofgem to review the charging regime.

Click to read more ...

Greenpeace crackdown

Having been declared an obstacle to economic development in India as a result of its campaigns against coal-fired power stations, Greenpeace now finds itself on the end of something of a crackdown by the Indian government.

In a letter dated 13th June, the Ministry has directed the Reserve Bank of India that all foreign contributions originating from Greenpeace International and Climate Works Foundation — two principal international contributors to Greenpeace India Society — must be kept on hold until individual clearances are obtained from the Ministry for each transaction.

Of course, being against most state controls, I'm not at all comfortable with the Indian government action, but you can still make a good case that the government has a right to prevent foreign interference in India's internal politics - at the end of the day, whether coal-fired power stations get built in India should be down to the Indian people alone. But if middle-class donors in the UK want to fund campaigns to keep millions of Indians in picturesque destitution then, while I think their behaviour immoral, I shy away from use of state power to stand in the way of their doing so.

But we should be pointing out, again and again, what a shameful thing it is to give money to Greenpeace.

Energy gloom

Updated on Oct 10, 2013 by Bishop Hill

Updated on Oct 10, 2013 by Bishop Hill

Updated on Oct 10, 2013 by Bishop Hill

David Cameron had a vision of a greener life, lived closer to natureIt's hard not to lose heart sometimes. Looking around the news on the energy front this morning, the bad news is overwhelming.

It's not online, but the FT has apparently reported that the coalition is considering accelerating the retreat from fossil fuels, with coal-fired power stations only operating as load-balancing capacity. This is because the coalition is frightened that Lord Oxburgh's Energy Bill amendment in the House of Lords will win through and that a ruinous decarbonisation target will be put in place.

Click to read more ...

UK takes the German path

The government has just released its provisional figures for 2012 greenhouse gas emissions, and it's not good news. Emission are up sharply, taking them back to the levels prevalent in 2009, when the Climate Change Act had just been put in place.

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Bringing politicians to Booker

Christopher Booker is in fine form this morning, describing in horrific detail the steady progress of the UK's energy system towards disaster. Perhaps mercifully, he does not move on to consider what this will mean for the economy as a whole and for individuals.

[It] is all insane in so many ways that one scarcely knows where to begin, except to point out that, even if our rulers somehow managed to subsidise firms into spending £100 billion on all those wind farms they dream of, they will still need enough new gas-fired power stations to provide back-up for all the times when the wind isn’t blowing, at the very time when the carbon tax will soon make it uneconomical for anyone to build them.

Update on Mar 24, 2013 by Bishop Hill

Interestingly, a leader in the Telegraph calls for the government to repeal the Climate Change Act. One can't help but be reminded about Winston Churchill's quote about being able to trust Americans to do the right thing once they've tried all the other options.

Nice to hear, but ten years ago would have been better.

Update on Mar 24, 2013 by Bishop Hill

The Mail is headlining on the excess deaths from the current cold weather.

Freezing Britain's unusually harsh winter could have cost thousands of pensioners their lives.

This month is on track to be the coldest March for 50 years – and as the bitter Arctic conditions caused blackouts and traffic chaos yesterday, experts warned of an 'horrendous' death toll among the elderly.

About 2,000 extra deaths were registered in just the first two weeks of March compared with the average for the same period over the past five years.