Sunday
Aug212011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Tories out!
Aug 21, 2011 Conservatives Energy: costs Really, that's the only conclusion that sane people can reach after reading Christopher Booker's latest in the Sunday Telegraph.
In a sane world, no one would dream of building power sources whose cost is 22 times greater than that of vastly more efficient competitors. But the Government feels compelled to do just this because it sees it as the only way to meet our commitment to the EU that within nine years Britain must generate nearly a third of its electricity from “renewable” sources, six times more than we do at present.
Update on Aug 21, 2011 by
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill
Richard North reckons Booker has got his numbers wrong and the actual figure should be 40 times rather than 22.
Reader Comments (82)
ZBD said
"It might be that the RSPB etc. aren't particularly bothered about wind turbines, as the deaths from them pale into insignificance when compared to other things like high glass-fronted buildings and plain old electricity cables."
Yes very good - complain about lack of evidence and reliance on anecdotal evidence - funny how you provide no evidence at all for your statements.
I feel very sorry for you if this is how you pass your time rather than having any friends.
I'm curious, is ZBD suggesting that having windmills somehow negates the need for power cables? If, and its only an if, birds are killed by them, then surely they will continue to be killed by them. The wind mills simply enhance the carnage.
Aug 21, 2011 at 10:43 AM | oldtimer
The current HoC has 650 seats.
Less 4 tellers = 646 votes which are counted.
Thus in order that CCA 2008 is repealed, more than 323 MPs will have to vote "yes, repeal it".
Of the 463 deluded loons who voted "aye" to CCA in 2008, about 350 of them were re-elected in May 2010.
So, the old loons already have a head start with the "noes" even before we start counting in the new loons from May 2010, starting with Dr. Caroline Lucas, MP (Green Party).
Therefore, unless just about all of the 350 re-elected loons can be forced into seeing the light and changing their minds, CCA 2008 is in force until hell freezes over, or maybe a little earlier, when the UK freezes over in Winter 2012/13, just when the LCPDs begin to start falling off the cliff.
Re: sandy
I was repeating a question posed by Mike Edwards.
It was never answered, although I did theorise that it would take hell freezing over for ZDB accept falsification of AGW.
Back to wind-fired subsidy farmers.
It seems to me that, if you propose to build a 150 MW name plate off-shore windmill project, then surely the consent to build should include the provision, funded by the developer, of a small gas-fired power station comprising 2 x 150 MW units.
Such a power station would be located within the boundary of the sub-station, which the developer provides anyway, and configured so that one unit is on hot standby duty i.e. already synchronised carrying a nominal stable load, whilst the other unit is on automatic load following duty.
In this way, as the wind goes on and off, as far as the grid is concerned there is a steady 24/7 output of 150 MW from the sub-station. The hot standby unit covers for failure of the duty machine.
Thus, for the first and only time would their stupid claims of so many homes being supplied with electricity by them be true.
This proposal would also head off the the requirement identified by Huhne of dozens of power stations, (presumably OCGTs) to be purchased by the electricity bill payer.
This was quietly floated in July 2011 when Huhne invented a new catch phrase to confuse the peasants: "Capacity Mechanism".
The greenest government ever has finally realised that there is a major problem with the supply of electricity in the UK during the next few years:
See "Planning our electric future: a white paper for secure, affordable and low-carbon electricity"
http://tinyurl.com/5w9l5na
page 5
"security of supply is threatened as existing plant closes: over the next decade we will lose around a quarter (around 20 GW) of our existing generation capacity as old or more polluting plant close. ..... In addition to this huge reduction in existing capacity, the future electricity system will also contain more intermittent generation (such as wind) and inflexible generation (such as nuclear). This raises additional challenges in terms of meeting demand at all times, for example when the wind does not blow"
page 9
"19. In order to ensure resource adequacy, the Government will legislate for a new contracting framework for capacity: a new Capacity Mechanism."
page 14 a time table which shows:
(a) White Paper and Legislation from mid 2011 to end 2014
(b) Institutional framework to set up an Organisation from late 2012 to late 2013
(c) Organisation receives legal powers late 2013
(d) Organisation up and running, delivers first contracts from 2014
(e) Capacity Mechanism (CM) in place end 2014
(f) Capacity procured during 2015
(g) Lead in time for Capacity - approx 3.5 years, ends early 2019
(h) Capacity in place from early 2019.
Now, there are a few clues there:
(c) The "Organisation" sounds a little bit like ...erm .... the old CEGB!
and
(g) what sort of generating capacity has a lead time of about three years? Why, that must be gas-fired power stations, surely.
So there you have it: Capacity Mechanism in broad terms means procuring spinning reserve to accommodate "for example, when the wind does not blow".
I think that the responsibility for the provision of spinning reserve should be met by a purpose built facility installed on-site by wind farm developers so that all the work is done by them, thereby relieving the poor civil servants of all that effort,usually followed by getting it hopelessly wrong.
Let us all pray.
David Cameron has been a spineless PM, presiding over a particularly invertebrate cabinet. As James Forsyth relates in the current "Spectator", there have been very few issues on which Cameron has felt any urge to stand up for the views he previously professed and hardly any members of the cabinet have managed to stamp their views on their civil servants, rather than going native.
Forsyth's source counts four cabinet ministers who have insisted on having things their way. I'd guess that Gove and Pickles are obvious and assume that Fox is one (he hasn't had much effect on the MoD, but no-one can accuse him of being its puppet). I can't think who the fourth one is. It obviously isn't the hopeless May and, if there were such a language as Belgian, Hague would be speaking it by now. I've a nasty feeling that the fourth man is Chris Huhne. If so, he is an impostor, because he entered his job as a died-in-the-wool alarmist heading the Department of Alarmism.
That doesn't explain Cameron's infatuation (the right word, "fatuus" being the Latin for "stupid") with the global warming fantasy. Why does he cling so desperately to this belief, when he so carelessly abandons long-held Conservative values without a second thought? Don't tell me that he genuinely still believes in this scam; I don't believe that anyone does. The alarmists now are pursuing a very left-wing agenda, which has nothing to do with the environment. Why is a supposedly right-wing PM so determined to support the alarmists?
For those who haven't seen these yet, they are well worth a look, showing the curious and spectacularly hypocritical way in which the eco-ideology is enforced in the United States:
http://www.globalwarming.org/2011/08/15/endangered-species-act-%E2%80%9Cscience%E2%80%9D-filled-with-secrecy-speculation-and-contradiction/
and
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/08/16/energy-in-america-dead-birds-unintended-consequence-wind-power-development/
Avicide by power cable
Before roosting for the night our local swallows who congregate by the hundred at this time were sitting on a high voltage cable, no deaths were observed. The 2 barn owls who are in my old disused barn have reared a new fledgling this year as for the last 20 odd years I know of, they seem to do well flying at night with the same cables as the swallows.
Zed, apart from being unsocialised and displaying extreme rudeness whenever you pop up here, you appear to have the inside information on technology nobody else knows about. Who would have imagined that the wind turbines will ultimately transmit their output without actual transmission cables within the National Grid? Pleas cite some proof for this, or have you just plucked this latest silliness out of the air.
I'm sorry I missed the fun but Madame and I have been enjoying a bottle of Picpoul and watching the bats (and the stars).
I noticed that Zed replied to my posting at 6.27 with her usual laughable suggestion that everyone but her is ill-mannered and it is her duty in life to teach us all how to behave, but three hours later has still refused to justify her original claim for bird deaths and has first of all resorted to her usual hand-waving and then quietly disappeared.
Plus ça change ...
I have seen one bird death, that I directly attribute to power lines. For many months, a Heron's carcass adorned the 133Kv power lines alongside the A617, near Chesterfield. It appeared to have slid between one of the quadruple cable lines, either electrocuting or strangulating itself.
The only way these bloody windmills will cease to be erected, is when it's so damned obvious that CO2 isn't responsible for any great heating effect upon our climate!
It'll take a few more years & a few more hard winters.
@browned off
How are the standby generators you propose going to be powered? Laying gas mains out into the middle of (floating) nowhere isn't going to be very easy. Perhaps they should be teensy weensy little nukes? Green and emission free...perfect!
Brownedoff 7:45 PM
Here's one of the three, Peter Lilley, who voted against the CCA, and for years has endured strife and bile from his fellows for questioning the scientific veracity, very unusually given space on the BBC website at the time in late 2008.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7746126.stm
But some MPs were not present I think. Can't find the proper division list, but from memory, despite only three voted against, plus two tellers (Ann Widdecombe was one), several were absent for the vote, I think Stringer was one of them. Remember most Tories were vying for a place in the new administration and didnt want to rock the boat. Lilley, who had served in a previous shadow cabinet and by rights should have had a prominent Ministry by now, had already scotched any chance in Camerons Circus because of his stand on climate. Much has changed. The Climategate and IPCC perfect storm, AGW having to be propped up by whitewash inquiries etc. they must sure by now be embarassingly looking for a face saving U-turn, if only for fear of losing voters. My vote very certainly goes to UKIP currently and remains so until a very strong wind of change sweeps through Westminster. The EU and the CCA millstones are politically inflicted burdens causing rising anger. We have seen it already in the Anglosphere in the US Tea Party Movement , in Australia right now in the convoy protests. And we will see it here in rising energy fuel bills inflation recession and unemployment.
Until we break the irrational fear of CO2 amongst our politicians we will continue to make ridiculous energy supply decisions. it is madness to try and supply our energy from hugely expensive, intermittent sources such as wind turbines whether on or offshore.
It's a bit like trying to commute to work in a Ferrari. Occasionally it works but most of the time it wont start or it's in the garage getting fixed, so you need an old banger to make sure you can actually get to work when you need to. Evan when it does work it costs you so much money to run that you would be better off staying at home and twiddling your thumbs.
Bofa
Any fule kno that a bird can perch on an HT cable in perfect safety - as long as it doesn't put one foot on the ground.
@dreadnought
Perhaps that's why they put power cables high in the air? so that only very long-legged birdies can produce ready fried fowl without needing the man from KFC? Dashed clever coves these engineering chappies!
But don't tell zdb..it'll ruin her illusions, And that would be very tragic .......
Mike Jackson
Shhh. We've been trying to keep the existence of Picpoul a secret. There isn't nearly enough for everyone.
For Zed I recommend this cheeky little Fitou:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/emily_s/174909413/
Costs of windfarms is yet further increased when you add in the fact that main bearings fail roughly every 12-18 months. This requires dismounting and sending the units to factory for replacement. Imagine how difficult this will be with off shore turbines in the middle of winter storms.
matthu -
surely BBC couldn't get much funnier than this Forum program, part of which i heard over the weekend, with its talk of saving the planet thru biomicickry. Benyus - who is involved with the controversial Lavasa project in India was touting it as an example of success, and BBC obviously can't google!
20 Aug: BBC - The Forum
What lessons can we learn from leaves, lizards and penguins and is it possible to build a city on the principles of sustainability?...
This week’s Forum guests are celebrated designer and architect Ron Arad; historian of modern fashion and culture, Pamela Church Gibson and biologist and consultant in the new field of biomimicry, Janine Benyus...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00jhrt6
Janine Benyus
Janine's international keynotes have introduced tens of thousands of people to biomimicry, including Amana-Key Executive Leadership Training, American Institute of Architects, American Institute of Chemical Engineers, California Resource Recovery Association, Cambridge University's Centre of International Studies and the Environment, Canadian National Roundtable for the Economy and the Environment, Design Futures Council, Global Business Network, Health Care Without Harm, the Prince of Wales' Business & the Environment Programme, National Textile Center, President's Council on Sustainable Development, Schumacher College, Stanford Graduate School of Business, and Wharton School of Business. She also hosted and co-wrote a two-hour public television special based on her book, which aired on "The Nature of Things with David Suzuki" in 71 countries.
http://www.janinebenyus.com/
Wikipedia: Lavasa, India
While some sections are complete, construction of Lavasa will not be finished before 2020...
Controversies
Bribes for loans...
Environmental damage...
QuarryingWhile Lavasa has stone crushing permits, its operations have been described as "hill cutting" and "quarrying" by the Indian Ministry of Environment and Forests, and the environmental impact of these activities has been under investigation.
Land acquisition
Some of the land used for Lavasa may have been obtained illegally.
Failure to pay State...
Forced removal of landowners...
Use of water resourcesLavasa will use the same water resources that currently supply Pune, and it is claimed that this will cause a supply shortage...
Construction on Lavasa has been suspended due to allegations made by the Indian Ministry of Environment and Forests.[7] This Ministry contends Lavasa did not obtain necessary central government approval obtaining clearance only from the state of Maharashtra instead.
In late 2010 it ordered Lavasa Corporation to halt further construction.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavasa
11 June: Business Standard, India: Maharashtra govt gets MoEF order for action against Lavasa
In a major setback to Ajit Gulabchand’s ambitious hill city project, the Union environment ministry today asked the Maharashtra government to initiate action against Lavasa Corporation for violation of green norms...
The company has incurred losses of about Rs 300 crore so far due to the stop-work notice issued by environment minister Jairam Ramesh. The stop -work notice came late last year...
http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/maharashtra-govt-gets-moef-order-for-action-against-lavasa/438696/
16 Aug: Business Standard, India: Lavasa agrees to patch up, will accept green riders
Lavasa Corporation, whose hill city project near Pune has been put on hold for failing to get green clearance from the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), is in a patch-up mode with the ministry.
After a long legal battle, Lavasa Construction Ltd, the project proponents of Lavasa, has agreed to accept the five ‘preconditions’ specified by the MoEF, over which the clearance was stuck. The Board of Lavasa Construction Ltd had met recently and passed a resolution stating they were ready to accept all the riders imposed by the ministry. In the next court hearing, the company will reiterate its stand...
MoEF had informed Lavasa Corporation about the five conditions necessary for getting the environmental clearance.
The conditions included ‘a credible action’ by the Maharashtra government against Lavasa for violations under the Environment (Protection) Act, a resolution from the board of directors of Lavasa that violations would not be repeated, an undertaking that development of the hill town (also called Lavasa) shall be as per Hill Station Regulations and a clear demarcation of ‘no development/construction zone’...
http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/lavasa-agrees-to-patch-up-will-accept-green-riders/445940/
12 March 2010: Sakal Times: Lavasa to use Biomimicry concept
World-renowned biologist and co-founder of Biomimicry Guild, Janine Benyus, who is conducting a three-day workshop on Bomimicry at Lavasa, which started on Wednedsay, said there is an irrevocable law of nature.
“Biomimicry can teach us how nature and living things have done everything that we want to do, without guzzling fossil fuel, polluting the planet or mortgaging their future,” Benyus said.
She said that answers to questions like how dragonflies outmaneuver best helicopters? How do hummingbirds cross the Gulf of Mexico on less than one tenth of an ounce of fuel?
“The answers to these questions will be the solution to so many of our problems. It is time we learnt about nature, not with an intention to control, but with an intention to fit in and last for good,” she said.
http://www.sakaaltimes.com/sakaaltimesbeta/20100312/4725066330446834818.htm
Nuclear power plants are very lucky to get 2p for a unit of electricity they supply to the grid at source. But with feed in tariffs people with PV are getting 3.1p plus 43.3p, i.e. 46.4p for exactly the same commodity supplied to the grid at source. So we are talking in the region of 20 - 40 times by that quick and dirty comparison.
This is worse than the CAP gone mad. Can you imagine a government in peacetime saying that supermarkets may choose to pay farmers the market rate for carrots, but MUST purchase and pay 30 times the market rate to any individual who brings to their store a bootful of carrots inefficiently grown on allotments or their back gardens?
Now I don't live in the UK, so I can't vote there.
But your problems seem to stem from your electoral system.
Or at least from the people that you voted for.
Or the people that the major parties endorsed as their candidates.
Now we're cooking.
SO
Perhaps it's time to join you local conservative party and make your views known.
Take your friends and neighbours with you when you join.
Gain a majority in your electorate.
spread that nation wide.
Then you may get changes made.
Perhaps I should do the same here.
What happens to all these UK committments to EU demands when the EU folds --which seems to be an increasingly real possibility with its inceasing economic woes ??
@ZDB
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svicELHAWyw&feature=player_embedded
1 min 56secs in!
I look forward to the breakdown figures as the North Sea winters hit the turbines. My oilfield days working outside on the rigs leads me to believe that the life time given for the whirlygigs is.....an exaggeration!
On the subject of how they are actually kept in place, I found this the other day.
http://www.ecofriend.com/entry/north-sea-to-get-worlds-first-floating-wind-farm-by-2009/
Most of the units I have seen seem to have been piled into the sea bed but the link above is about floating (!) units with anchors. Not sure if the project went ahead in this form but I would be interested to know how they are behaving.
I just love the idea of a floating wind farm in the North Sea in winter.
"Stand by, Norway! We's a-comin' to get yer!"
I am a critical of the luicrous economics of windfarms as the next person, but those numbers spouted by Booker make no sense.
The "capital cost per MW" is not the full picture. The cited gas fired plant may have only a capital cost of 500k per MW, but it has much high marginal costs. It needs to buy the gas.
Scarce resources are costly but why is our government making energy into a scarce resource? It does not need to be, in fact, we have the means to have a plentiful energy supply but it will not come from windmills so why is our and other governments following this route?
One thing that might make the political class more responsive to public opinion would be if their jobs were to be evaluated in the same way that those of people in other occupations are when there are big changes in the nature of their work.
Today a large proportion of our laws come from Brussels. I read that 80% of German laws come from the EU. No doubt the proportion for Britain will be the same and even if the German estimate is exaggerated it is obvious that we are still paying our politicians as if they were ruling the country when they are not. A proper job evaluation would lead to a drastic reduction in what we pay our MPs.
Faced with a choice between an 80% pay cut and governing in the interests of the British people our MPs might discover that their interests coincide with ours!
Personnally I'm looking forward to rolling brown outs as last time a main transformer blew where I live I had an enjoyable day reading a book, once the sun went down though it was a bit of a nightmare though and I wouldn't want to try it in the middle of winter.
Zed might like to know that Californians are wrestling with the same problem:
<href = "http://www.nationalreview.com/planet-gore/274804/dead-eagle-has-landed-greg-pollowitz#">Link
Funny how both the RSPB and US Fish and Wildlife Service remain mute about this. Just as well I'm not a conspiracy theorist.. :-)
Oops..
Link that works
Aug 22, 2011 at 9:19 AM | Geckko
As has been stated many times here wind turbines need gas powered backup.
Does the cost of gas used when wind turbines aren't at 100% load counted against the wind turbine or the gas power station running costs? I my book it goes against the wind turbine as does the gas used when the gas generator is sitting on standby "just in case".
It's no good wind is an obsolete technology, it was in the 19th century and is even more obsolete in the 21st.
Aug 21, 2011 at 10:07 PM | Latimer Alder
How are the standby generators you propose going to be powered? Laying gas mains out into the middle of (floating) nowhere isn't going to be very easy
With regard to the Ormonde 150MW windmill farm (subject of Shuckman's report mentioned by Booker) there is an off-shore substation, mounted on piles, local to the windmills, but from that position, there is a 42km undersea cable system which connects the windmill's off-shore substation to NG's substation which is on-shore at Heysham. It really is pushing the envelope to dignify this off-shore piece of kit as a "substation" - it is just a couple of transformers and some switchgear. See http://tinyurl.com/3fnd2pc
It is at the proper NG substation at Heysham that Vattenfall should be installing the 2 x 150 MW OCGT power station, complete with underground natural gas supply pipeline from the national gas grid system, to ensure that the promised 150 MW output is guaranteed, 24/7.
Not difficult at all, it just needs the political will to ensure that the "spinning reserve" is paid for by the subsidy farmers rather than the electricity bill payers.
Brownedoff
They wouldn't like that at all. Does funny things to their cost per kW/h projections.
But keep saying it.