Bishop Hill Something rotten in the state of Denmark
May 1, 2010 Energy Robert Bryce's new book, Power Hungry, looks at green energy and concludes that it's rotten (H/T Matt Ridley). There's a summary of the main arguments here.
The article is very interesting, although a commenter a Matt's reckons the security of supply arguments may be wrong. But how about this for killing off the argument that Denmark has shown us the way?
Denmark, the poster child for wind energy boosters, more than doubled its production of wind energy between 1999 and 2007. Yet data from Energinet.dk, the operator of Denmark's natural gas and electricity grids, show that carbon dioxide emissions from electricity generation in 2007 were at about the same level as they were back in 1990, before the country began its frenzied construction of turbines. Denmark has done a good job of keeping its overall carbon dioxide emissions flat, but that is in large part because of near-zero population growth and exorbitant energy taxes, not wind energy. And through 2017, the Danes foresee no decrease in carbon dioxide emissions from electricity generation.
[Updated to fix mistake with book title]
