Wednesday
Aug312011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Farmers
Aug 31, 2011 Economics Energy: costs Ethics H/T to Richard Betts for this story.
Barclays claims a third of the UK's estimated 200,000 farmers (37%) will invest in renewable energy as it launches a new £100M fund to bankroll potential projects today (August 30).
The funding, which has been planned with support from organisations including the influential National Farmers Union (NFU), is aimed at helping farmers install all renewable technologies with Barclays including projected feed-in-tariffs (FITs) when assessing each loan.
So not only do we have to pay farmers through the nose via the Common Agricultural Policy but we have to pay them again via feed-in tariffs.
This will end badly.
Reader Comments (95)
Not only that, you can bet that there won't be many hill farmers taking up this offer; it'll be the large operations, already well-endowed. It's also sick that the banks can jump on this bandwagon whilst starving the UK small business sector of growth potential.
This is already going bad. In Devon, Cornwall and the south-west (I guess everywhere), we have seen a big push by all sorts of cowboy developers to get farmers to sign up to all sorts of crazy schemes to get hold of the Feed-in Tariffs. Council planners are being overwhelmed by applications for wind turbines, "solar parks" (fortunately less since the FiT was considerably reduced) and Anaerobic Digesters. It is a nightmare and the countryside will rapidly be ruined. What used to be big wind turbines are now, as part of the propaganda of the wind turbine scam, classified as small or micro. It will all end in tears and the unsuspecting consumer will pay, via their electricity bills and their jobs, for this gigantic folly.
It wouldn't be so bad if there were any benefit to it all. But all the evidence suggests that wind turbines may actually increase CO2 emissions as a result of many factors, the biggest being the increased inefficiency of fossil-fuel power stations acting as back-up to maintain grid stability. As long as politicians have "binding" renewable energy targets, agreed to by Tony Blair with our EU masters, they will not acknowledge the truth that wind turbines increase CO2 emissions.
Once one reads this the Tory support for AGW mythology is no longer a mystery. But there are far more voters paying much more for the their power than crony capitalist farmers. The Mail and the Express are beginning to make the connections. It will indeed end badly.
A nice cold snowy winter will sharpen the farmers minds when they have to rely on compound animal feed to keep their stock alive and realise the price increases due to the declining supply of main ingredients such as wheat and soya.
Winters in the past decade have been relatively mild allowing animals to graze the land for most of the winter months. A good old fashioned month or two of snow will do the countryside no end of good as far as this environmental fallacy is concerned.
the solar feed-in tariffs are varied in the australian states, but are causing havoc all round, especially in rising electricity prices, which adds costs to consumers and business people. already small businesses claim they've had to shut down on account of rising energy costs.
on the very same day the Convoy of No Confidence headed to Canberra from all over Australia to oppose the carbon tax/ETS, the govt passed a bill which will be rubber-stamped in the House of Reps (and which the Opposition did not vote for, but say they will only improve, not overturn, if they win the next election). there are fears the planting of so many trees for commercial reasons could lead to worse bush fires than we already have, plus serious concerns about food security, but so determined is the govt (and the Opposition) to set in train the trading in CO2, money is being thrown at this one too:
4 Aug: Cooma Express: Carbon offsets scheme “great” for the Monaro
THE Carbon Farming Initiative (CFI), a carbon offsets scheme that will financially reward farmers and landholders for reducing Australia’s carbon pollution, has passed the Senate this week...
"To support this scheme, the government will be investing $1.7 billion over seven years to help rural communities benefit from carbon farming and support the restoration and protection of biodiverse landscapes.”...
http://www.coomaexpress.com.au/news/local/news/general/carbon-offsets-scheme-great-for-the-monaro/2269514.aspx
1 Aug: Examiner, Tasmania Australia: Paddy Manning: Grazing and farming land taken over to offset carbon
Robert Gill, who sold Lorraine, said he was nearing retirement age and his son was entrenched in another career. He had his merino sheep and cereal farming operation on the market for a few years before getting an offer near market price from CO2 Group. ''There were not too many buyers about. I felt if I let these people go I might not find another buyer for a while.''
However, Mr Gill said the farm was still productive and he was sad to see it go under trees after spending his ''whole lifetime cleaning it up''. ''I'm very sceptical about the whole thing, to be honest,'' he said.
Where mining projects threaten endangered species, governments can require mining companies to buy land with biodiversity value to offset any impact. These acquisitions, worth almost $33 million, were a significant portion of the Herald's review of land sales in 2010-11.
In February, the Rio Tinto subsidiary Coal & Allied paid $23.4 million for a 9956-hectare stretch of land between Merriwa and Cassilis in the Upper Hunter, including the St Antoine grazing property owned by the cattleman Tony Maurici's Castlebar Holdings. Coal & Allied has confirmed these acquisitions would not be mined but were bought as biodiversity offsets as a condition for expanding mining in the Hunter.
In a presentation to investors last week the company said it had spent $40 million this year on offset acquisitions linked to its proposed Mount Pleasant coalmine near Muswellbrook. The Swiss miner Xstrata has also joined in, paying more than $8.4 million through the property agent Brunskill Pty Ltd for a series of farms in the Muswellbrook area, totalling 4419 hectares.
http://www.examiner.com.au/news/national/national/environment/grazing-and-farming-land-taken-over-to-offset-carbon/2243619.aspx?storypage=1
22 Aug: Reuters: Australia passes CO2 offset laws, carbon pricing next
Reporting by James Grubel; Additional reporting by Stian Reklev of Point Carbon News; Editing by David Fogarty
The step came as hundreds of truckers circled Australia’s parliament on Monday in a campaign aimed at forcing the government to withdraw the proposed carbon tax law, and call new elections.
Projects backed by the CFI include tree plantations that soak up carbon dioxide as they grow, cutting methane emissions from burping camels and livestock, reducing fertilizer use and better fire management of northern grasslands…
INTERNATIONAL TRADE
The government said the offsets can be traded domestically and overseas…
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/22/us-australia-carbon-idUSTRE77L1AF20110822
"Madness has no purpose. Or reason. But it may have a goal. -- Spock, The Alternative Factor, stardate 3088.7"
There are signs that Germany may have acted in haste with regard to Nuclear Power (as most of us realise). I think that decision will be reversed in the not too distant future.
This british initiative is another folly under the umberela of the green deal. How unwise is it to introduce or impecunious banking system to a new way of investing our money in order to fulfill unatainable targets set by the EU.
We need an adjective to describe this MALAISE
"A general feeling of being ill or having no energy, or an uncomfortable feeling that something is wrong, especially with society, and that you cannot change the situation"
I thought that farming was supposed to be about producing food. If Marie Antoinette were alive today she would say "let them eat windmills" or possibly "solar panels".
@roy
'I thought that farming was supposed to be about producing food'
They ain't called 'wind farms' for nothing.....
Roy and Latimer:
The NFU is as disingenuous as any of these other organisations in its lust for getting more subsidies for its members. I have seen a document from the NFU in which in one paragraph it says farmers must be subsidised to grow more food to feed the burgeoning world population and in the next paragraph it says farmers need big subsidies to grow crops to make biofuel and to put into anaerobic digesters to make renewable energy to save the planet. They want it all ways.
I suppose you can't totally blame the NFU for doing the best for its members in the short term. After all, they are only repeating government lies and they don't have experts who know what they are talking about - just like the government I suppose..
pesadia:
“We need an adjective to describe this MALAISE - A general feeling of being ill or having no energy...”
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome would seem to cover it - chronic fatigue being defined as a feeling of beng tired of Time, wishing that something interesting (i.e. catastrophic) would happen.
“Doctor, I have this feeling of having no energy” (that’s one for Josh)
Well, as an arable farmer (albeit one unable to drive his combine today, due to what used to be called a slipped disc) , I'd just light to say that anything that promotes the wheat shortage is good for those of us still dedicated to growing it.
Carbon
Renewable
Associated
Power
Politics (and science) can only get so bad, and then there is revolt. The trouble is, who revolts first and with what aim? It depends upon how much of civilization reasonable people are willing to see thrown into the flames, and just how unreasonable the unreasonable ones are. Big Brother is one thing, but what happens when it comes down to Eloi and Morlochs? Every attempt to simplify the situation just leads to open war in one form or another. Maybe the politicos should be firmly educated that it is either open war in science now, with politicians backing off their grand schemes, or the real hell of real war soon enough.
"But all the evidence suggests that wind turbines may actually increase CO2 emissions"
Aug 31, 2011 at 8:38 AM | Phillip Bratby
Well this I would love to see.
Can you tell me where I can see this evidence please Philip?
Aussie farmer here. Just participated in a Dept. of Ag survey re. farmers attitude to "Global Warming".The results from the last survey were that only 27% of my peers (in the State of Victoria) believed in this nonsense and I would expect that the percentage will be down for the new survey.
The good news on the wind farm scene here is that our newish state govt. has changed the rules for wind farm establishment and the one that counts is that a turbine cannot be built within 2 kms of a house without the home owners permission. Wind farms are also banned from high value scenic areas. These rules should stop the development of new wind farms in Victoria.
Ah, yes. we'll see the folks of the Brit Isles queuing up to get a munch out of the local windmill.
Actually, this is likely the best, most humane, method Government can produce. Based on medical consensus, it's much easier to die of freezing than starvation. The plan is to produce just enough fuel and food to get into February then it's lights out. The growth industry in the Spring will be disposing of all the stiffs set outside during the hottest winters on record.
Yep - and today (check it on NETA) - wind is producing 0.1% of demand (40MW) - or 1.3% of installed capacity (3086MW) - which is even LOWER than when it was producing 0.1% of demand last December (40000MW now as opposed to 60000MW then).
I recall a recent programme about wind farms when a the farmer (in the accepted sense of the word) whose land was going to be used, was practically having an orgasm on screen at the thought of how much money he was going to make from the Feed in Tariff and other inducements...
The problem lies with the planning process. Planners presumably take into account aesthetics; noise pollution; effects on wildlife, etc etc - or at least they should - but no account whatsoever as to whether the things actually PRODUCE ANY ELECTRICITY.... Imagine giving permission to build 1000 houses, which then nobody lives in...
Phillip Bratby - you are absolutely right, of course - a study in The Netherlands a few years ago (totally ignored by the politicians) proved without a shadow of doubt that wind turbines actually increase CO2, for precisely the reason you mention - that the standby power generation equipment has to be used inefficiently to take account of the erratic and occasional output from wind turbines.
Depressing to think that by blogging on here I'm preaching to the converted...!
Zed
http://tinyurl.com/4368pdo
"Zed http://tinyurl.com/4368pdo"
Aug 31, 2011 at 12:38 PM | Mike Jackson
That's a Google search.
I said evidence.
Sorry - I lied in my previous message.
Wind output now 38MW....
MALAISE:
"A general feeling of being ill or having no energy, or an uncomfortable feeling that something is wrong, especially with society, and that you cannot change the situation"
Hey, pesadia, I got that there disease. Is there a cure (I already smoke heavily, but don't drink)?
This website might be of interest, when looking into the links between NFU, Defra and the renewables industry:
http://www.farmingfutures.org.uk/
The "Supported By" list of organisations includes NFU and Defra, also environmental groups FWAG (Farming & Wildlife Advisory Group), Forum for the Future (Jonathon Porritt's organisation) and LEAF (Linking Environment and Farming.)
This may also interest you:
http://www.farmingfutures.org.uk/sites/default/files/casestudy/pdf/opportunities_and_challenges.pdf
Climate change may lead to "[r]educed frost damage as frosts become milder and less frequent".
"Warmer weather may reduce energy costs for buildings, especially new builds."
Re: Zed
http://www.masterresource.org/2010/06/wind-integration-and-emissions/
You wont like it though, it uses real data.
TerryS
She won't like it because it's a google search which is not evidence (she says!).
"Evidence", you need to understand, is what Zed says it is not what you or I might say it is.
She constantly whinges about our never providing links even though she never does and when we do they have to be ones she likes or they don't count.
(Yours, incidentally, leads to the same paper as mine.)
Ironically, the last time I complained about her not providing me with a reference she suggested I try google.
You can't win with people like that (but occasionally you can have a lot of fun!)
Zed
You asked for proof.
I referred you to a paper on the subject.
You don't like it, your problem.
Interestingly enough, TerryS's link indicates that having coal plants back up wind power, results in an increase in CO2 emissions, although using gas (CCGT/OCGT) plants results in a decrease. [See its figure with carbon dioxide emissions, towards the bottom.]
However, Mike Jackson's source claims that even CCGT/OCGT results in more CO2. [See figure 2.]
Personally, I haven't the time nor inclination to look into this, so take the above analyses cum grano salis. However, at a coarse level, the two sources suggest that the presumption that wind energy is "free" is naive with respect to CO2. We've seen in previous posts, that such a conclusion applies with respect to economics.
Sorry about the cross-post, Mike Jackson, and I thought that your source was the first hit on the search. At least on my version of the search!
"Re: Zed
http://www.masterresource.org/2010/06/wind-integration-and-emissions/
You wont like it though, it uses real data."
Aug 31, 2011 at 1:18 PM | TerryS
Rather impolite with that last sentence.
How hard is it for you all to understand what constitutes actual evidence?
Are you really all so totally unsceptical, that you have no qualitative ability to assess evidence? So far, in response to my request, I've had a link to a google search, and one to a non-peer-reviewed article in an oil-focused free market blog.
Despite that, I actually bothered to read through it for once, and found that just as normal with much of the 'evidence' that people cite here, that it made for for flimsy source material indeed.
Quite aside from the obvious and stated bias of almost all involved in the production of the article, I could only see one amongst the list of references that might possibly be peer-reviewed, and everything else was quite clearly not, largely consisting of industry rags and media articles.
The main thrust of the article was that to make its laboured point, the back up had to be coal, the most carbon intensive form of electricity production. And even then, it was not very conclusive, calling instead for a 'watch and wait' recommendation rather than a definitive outcome.
Terry S - this was a poor evidential source and you have just wasted some of my life poring through it. Are you genuinely unable to asses evidence for quality, or do you not care how good evidence is, as long as it seems to agree with you?
I'm aware that (collective) you generally have to be less picky about your sources, as you don't have much science on your side. But do you really have to cite things like this, and then all whistle and look away to pretend it's not as flimsy as this clearly is?
Rant over. But please stop wasting mine and your own time with references like this.
A couple of other observations as to how sceptical you collectively are or aren't.
1) Philip Bratby has made a bold and unusual assertion with no evidence. Nobody else here has asked to see evidence for that claim. That's not very sceptical.
2) Philip, after being asked by me to produce evidence for his claim, has not done so. Nobody has called him out on this. A sceptical mind would be asking him if he actually has any, and forming opinions about his credibility.
3) Two very poor sources of evidence have so far been produced. Frankly, both have been poor, and at the time of typing, nobody has taken the time to criticise them. This is the opposite of sceptical. If somebody cites a very poor quality source of evidence, and you style yourself as sceptical, then you have something approaching an obligation to pick them up on it, regardless of if it/they are on your 'side' or not, or how can you really claim to be sceptical at all?
Rant really over now. Please don't delete this Andrew, as it took a lot of time I don't always have both to read the bad article, and to write this comment.
(but occasionally you can have a lot of fun!)
Zed
You asked for proof.
I referred you to a paper on the subject.
You don't like it, your problem.
Aug 31, 2011 at 1:38 PM | Unregistered CommenterMike Jackson
Mike if you wanna have fun with Zebedee, good luck.
Me, I wouldn't touch her with yours!
I don't respond to zebedee as she has never yet responded to any requests to her.
"I don't respond to zebedee as she has never yet responded to any requests to her."
Aug 31, 2011 at 2:17 PM | Phillip Bratby
a) Untrue
b) Or more like, you don't like being asked for tricky things like evidence.
Zed, I do wish you would stop jumping to conclusions about what we think on this blog. The links that TerryS and I provided would have been good enough for you if you'd liked what you read there.
As for your lengthy diatribe on what you think they really say, frankly I don't care and neither does anyone else. If I've got reservations about someone's comment on wind farms and CO2 then I may (or may not) reply to him/her. I don't feel the need to haunt other people's blogs and criticise them either for their points of view (as you see them) or they ways they choose to express them.
I would rather like the Bishop to delete your last posting if only to demonstrate what you persistently forget, which is you are not the one who makes the decisions round here.
Oh, and you still have unfinished business vis-a-vis Jack and Peter Walsh on the Discussion thread.
"The links that TerryS and I provided would have been good enough for you if you'd liked what you read there."
Aug 31, 2011 at 2:24 PM | Mike Jackson
No. They wouldn't. That's the thing about good evidence, it's laregely objective, not subjective.
As regards your last sentence, you have a somewhat deluded view of the world if you feel you can demand people on an internet blog do whatever you want. I again urge you to have a chat to a close family member etc.
This is another example of how govt intervention has been used to distort market forces in favour of policy, at the tax payers expense
Of course it will end in tears, at the tax payers expense
Zeds :2:29pm, last para
Good to see you are developing a sense of humour
ZDB: the following is an extract from an article published in UK Power, Issue 2 (2004). I think the data was based on an assumed 30% capacity factor for wind-turbines which sounds high and would make the following analysis conservative in terms of the calculated impacts. Presumably this analysis could be updated with measured capacity data and a realistic back-up energy mix but it looks reasonable to assume the outcome would still remain bleak, assuming one cares about CO2 emissions.
Author: Bass, Robert; and Wilmot, Peter
The real carbon dioxide reduction achieved by the use of wind turbines is not a simple calculation. While it is true that the wind delivers energy, without emitting carbon dioxide, it does not take into account the process which replaces it when the wind fails.
As an example, consider 1GW of installed wind turbine capacity, which as we have seen would deliver an average clean output of approximately 300MW over the period of one year. Clearly, it would cycle between 1GW and 0GW during the period and this would require a back up power station of 1GW capacity to deliver the required make–up on demand.
The environmental impact of this replacement generation will depend upon the type of fuel used and the efficiency of the power plant.
Comparing carbon dioxide emissions
The approximate carbon dioxide liberated per GJ of heat output for specific fuels.
Fuel CO2 per GJ of heat output
Coal 120 kg
Oil 75 kg
Natural gas (methane) 50 kg
(source: Renewable Energy, Boyle 1996)
Type of Power plant Plant efficiency
Direct Coal Fired 34-35%
Direct Oil Fired 34-36%
Open Cycle Fired 34-36%
Combined Cycle Gas Turbine (CCGT) 54-56%
Hence the quantity of CO2 liberated by generating a continuous output for a period of one year can be calculated for various fuels:
e.g. For a power station continuously generating 1GW of power (where 1 GWh = 3.60 × 103 GJ and 1 year = 8760 hours) the total energy produced is:
Total energy generated = 3600 × 8760 = 3.15 × 107 GJ
And for a coal fired power plant of 35% efficiency the total quantity of CO2 produced is therefore:
CO2 produced = 3.15 × 107 × 120 × 10-3 = 10.8 million tonnes/annum
Similarly, carbon dioxide liberated per GW generated continuously for one year (8760 hours) from different fossil fuels is:
Fuel type CO2 tonnes/year
Direct Coal fired 10.8m tonnes/year
Direct Oil fired 6.75m tonnes/year
Gas (open cycle) 4.5m tonnes/year
Gas (CCGT) 2.85m tonnes/year
Wind turbine Nil
The new wind generators will come on stream during the next five years and may be expected to generate power for twenty-five to forty years. During this time the early years of the make-up power will come from the existing fossil fuel power plants. Many of these units, however, are already half way through their working lives and will have to be replaced during the next five to fifteen years.
Furthermore, the current Combined Cycle Gas Turbine (CCGT) units are not well suited to follow the demand load changes on the network as the boiler/steam turbine units respond slowly to major load swings. And when the transient output from the wind turbines is added to the fluctuating nature of customer demands, the picture of the network supply requirements becomes even more unpredictable.
The potential consequences of wind power
If a 1GW wind farms generates power to the grid during all the periods when wind is sufficiently powerful, it might be expected to deliver approximately 2,630 GWh per year. However, this would cause a short fall against a 1GW base load demand (ie. 8760 GWh) over the same period of approximately 6,100GWh and this has to be generated by fossil fuels.
The consequences are summarised in the table below:
Annual tonnage of CO2 emitted
Wind turbine + CCGT station 2.0m tonnes
Wind turbine + Open cycle station 3.15m tonnes
Wind turbine + Oil fired station 4.75m tonnes
Wind turbine + Coal fired station 7.5m tonnes
The data demonstrates that at best a wind turbine farm of 1GW installed capacity would save approximately 0.85m tonnes of carbon dioxide annually if it displaced an efficient CCGT plant. By the year 2010 a number of the current CCGT stations will be more than twenty years old and approaching the de-commissioning phase. If the financial incentives are inadequate (as is the current position) and the base load market is not available to help defray capital and fixed operating costs, they will not be replaced. The technology of any such new plants will also need to have been developed to handle the transient nature to the demand after the wind farms have produced their volatile output. The supply of natural gas will need to be reliable and economically priced but by this time it will be imported from politically less stable sources.
If the gas fired units are not available, the supply would have to come from either oil or coal fired plant (or even new open cycle gas fired plants). This would cause carbon dioxide emissions to increase above their current best levels.
In the case of oil fired back-up, the increase is some 1.9 m tonnes greater than the current position would be where the whole load is supplied by a gas fired CCGT plant. If the comparison is made with a coal fired plant supplying the make-up, the increase in carbon dioxide would be 4.6m tonnes annually.
And these figures will be eight times greater if the wind turbine installed capacity reaches the government’s target of 8GW.
It is worth noting that the government is committed to reducing the carbon dioxide emissions by 26.5m tonnes annually by 2010. A significant proportion of this reduction is planned to be delivered by wind turbines. This analysis suggests that the current ‘Dash For Wind’ could actually make the situation worse.
Robert J Bass and Dr Peter Wilmot
School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, Loughborough University
UK Power, Issue 2 (2004)
For further information, contact Mr Robert J. Bass on Tel: 01780 763024 or Dr Peter Wilmot on Tel: 01509 227 555.
Bish, Guido Fawkes has an AGW thread!
Aug 31, 2011 at 2:48 PM | Varco
Is it peer-reviewed? No.
Is it highly partial? Yes.
Is it good evidence? No.
Does it use as its central hypothesis a straight single station-turbine equation, with no allowance at all of the flexibility from a grid or for mulitiple stations? Sure does.
Another terrible source of evidence.
Varco - did you not understand that this evidence was not good, or did you not care?
zeds
surely the main problem with the paper cited by Varco is that it starts from the assumption that the windmills will generate any power at all! As experience shows, this is highly dubious. So, I agree that it is partial but not at all in the way you conclude.
"surely the main problem with the paper cited by Varco is that it starts from the assumption that the windmills will generate any power at all!"
Aug 31, 2011 at 3:11 PM | diogenes
Oh how hilarious.
Although it's hard to type through my tears of mirth, I refer you, as so many other people here, to the time Andrew ran with a leader about how turbines were producing too much power and in danger of overloading the grid, and had to be switched off.
Or do you think Andrew Montford is wrong?
We need to bear in mind that the only "green" reasons for Barclays to lend money to such projects is the colour of the money that they will get back.
European banks have been very happy to lend to subsidised renewable projects in Germany and Spain since it is almost impossible for the projects to lose money and the banks' return is ensured. Morever the reduced risk for the borrower means that the level of bad debts that may have to be written by the banks is very low.
Essentially it is taxpayers money ending up with the banks.
"written off" of course.
"We need to bear in mind that the only "green" reasons for Barclays to lend money to such projects is the colour of the money that they will get back."
Aug 31, 2011 at 3:21 PM | Krishna Pillai
So you're able to say for certain, that eveybody involved in banking is a baddie, and nobody at all with power in banks wishes to look after the environment, are you?
I again ask for evidence. Although in your case, I'd be very surprised indeed if you were able to prove that no bank wishes to look after the environment. Still, I wait to be surprised.
Perhaps if we wait patiently, zbd will produce the evidence showing how much CO2 Germany's 27.416GW of installed wind capacity is saving. With that amount of capacity, installed at a cost of at least £50billion at todays' prices, it needs to be an enormous amount. Just think how much good £50billion could do if spent on medical research instead of thrown to the wind.
I am sure that most (sane) taxpayers in the UK would be livid if they could be presented with the facts of the incredible amount of subsidy that is hidden in the prices they must pay for milk, meat, bread and other agricultural produce. Antipodean farmers do not qualify for any kind of subsidy whatsoever and still manage to land food and wine in the UK at a price that is not only competitive with that produced in the UK as to quality, but produces less CO2 in it's total production and journey from the other side of the world than UK farm products.
I suspect that Zed's diet consists mostly of red herrings, the same Zed only demands answers and 'acceptable' proof, but never provides an answer..
Alexander:
I am expecting zbd to come back with empirical evidence published in a peer-reviewed journal showing just how much CO2 wind turbines save. There is no point building them and wasting all that money unless the saving in CO2 emissions is proven empirically.
I just know from her certainty that she has the evidence.
They closed the fields and lined up
Black panels on the ground,
So that no needful food crops
Upon their farms were found.
But God sent snow in winter
That made the panels fail
And later in the season
He smashed them up with hail.
For good gifts around us,
The ones that meet a need,
We’ll gladly pay the honest price
But not for greed.
zeds
"Although it's hard to type through my tears of mirth, I refer you, as so many other people here, to the time Andrew ran with a leader about how turbines were producing too much power and in danger of overloading the grid, and had to be switched off."
You come across as rather pompous in the way you pointedly refer to "Andrew Montford" but I am sure you like to be thought of as pompous. Your example seems top show exactly why windmills are not a good source of power - they are not controlable and cannot match supply to demand very easily. Do you not understand that?
I also refer you to this site "http://ontariowindperformance.wordpress.com/" - analysis of real-life numbers. I suppose you will say that it is not peer-reviewed in order that you do not have to bother doing your own statistics.
and I would hope thaqt people making investment decisions in banks make them with commercial judgment rather than on how "green" they are being.....so obviously bankers are going to be eco-baddies unless the Government steps in to rig the market, as it does with feed-in tariffs
I see your point Zed, but 1 night when turbines were paid to be turned off, during a time when conditions for Hydro were good and nuclear was running well and during a period of low demand for electricity does not fully justify wind power. I wonder how much infrastructure was in place at the time for the other forms of electricity generation to be switched off to allow for supposedly reliable wind to take over and hold it's own without the need to switch the other forms back on.
Sure, there have been a few other occasions, but in the grand scheme of things, not many. I have not credentials to say whether it will be valuable to us in the future, but as a consumer I am wary and find it under performs more than it over performs.
Here is the BBC story...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-13253876
I am sure it has as many choice quotes for you as it would for others on this blog, so let’s not use it as a tool for throwing at each other.
Like I say, I see your point, but I feel you maybe jumped on that one a tad too readily for me.