Gordon Hughes on the economics of wind power

Gordon Hughes has authored a submission to the House of Commons Energy and Climate Change Committee on behalf of GWPF. The subject is wind power. It makes for horrifying reading.

Meeting the UK Government’s target for renewable generation in 2020 will require total wind capacity of 36 GW backed up by 21 GW of open cycle gas plants plus large complementary investments in transmission capacity. Allowing for the shorter life of wind turbines, the investment outlay for this Wind scenario will be about £124 bilion. The same electricity demand could be met from 21.5 GW of combined cycle gas plants with a capital cost of £13 billion.

Or what about this?

Under the most favourable assumptions for wind power, the Wind scenario will reduce emissions of CO2 relative to the Gas scenario by 21 million metric tons in 2020 - 2.6% of the 1990 baseline at an average cost of about £415 per metric ton at 2009 prices. The average cost is far higher than the average price under the EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme or the floor carbon prices that have been proposed by the Department of Energy and Climate Change. If this is typical of the cost of reducing carbon emissions to meet the UK’s 2020 target, then the total cost of meeting the target would be £120 billion in 2020, or about 6.8% of GDP.

I don't think that anyone expects the committee to even bat an eyelid, let alone pay any attention.

2012 Annual GWPF Lecture - Cartoon notes by Josh

If you missed the 2012 Annual GWPF Lecture last night then don't worry, here are the cartoon notes which, we hope, will, possibly, with a fair wind and a bit of a subsidy, explain everything in one fell swoop of an image...

Click to read more ...

Chronic wind

The latest GWPF report - on the subject of wind energy - is published today. It makes pretty grim reading.

In his report, Professor Gordon Hughes (Edinburgh University) finds that

* Meeting the UK Government's target for renewable generation in 2020 will require total wind capacity of 36 GW backed up by 13 GW of open cycle gas plants plus large complementary investments in transmission capacity at a cost of about £120 billion.

* The same electricity demand could be met from 21.5 GW of combined cycle gas plants with a cost of £13 billion, i.e. an order of magnitude cheaper than the wind scenario.

* Under the most favourable assumptions for wind power, the Government's wind policy will reduce emissions of CO2 at an average cost of £270 per metric ton (at 2009 prices) which means that meeting the UK's renewable energy target would cost a staggering £78 billion per year in 2020.

Read the whole thing.

The myth of green jobs

GWPF have published a new report on the green jobs that are alleged to be a beneficial side effect of the government's energy policies. It's by Gordon Hughes, an eminent economist from Edinburgh. Here's how Hughes summarises the story.

"Claims by politicians and lobbyists that green energy policies will create a few thousand jobs are not supported by the evidence. In terms of the labour market, the gains for a small number of actual or potential employees in businesses specialising in renewable energy has to be weighed against the dismal prospects for a much larger group of workers producing tradable goods in the rest of the manufacturing sector," Professor Hughes said.

The full report can be downloaded here: The Myth of Green Jobs