True cost of Britain’s wind farm industry revealed

By Robert Mendick, and Edward Malnick in the Telegraph

A new analysis of government and industry figures shows that wind turbine owners received £1.2billion in the form of a consumer subsidy, paid by a supplement on electricity bills last year. They employed 12,000 people, to produce an effective £100,000 subsidy on each job.

The disclosure is potentially embarrassing for the wind industry, which claims it is an economically dynamic sector that creates jobs. It was described by critics as proof the sector was not economically viable, with one calling it evidence of “soft jobs” that depended on the taxpayer.

The subsidy was disclosed in a new analysis of official figures, which showed that:

• The level of support from subsidies in some cases is so high that jobs are effectively supported to the extent of £1.3million each;

• In Scotland, which has 203 onshore wind farms — more than anywhere else in the UK — just 2,235 people are directly employed to work on them despite an annual subsidy of £344million. That works out at £154,000 per job;

Logging for biofuel not Earth-friendly after all. Who would have thought?

From Science Daily:

Using wood for energy is considered cleaner than fossil fuels, but a Dartmouth College-led study finds that logging may release large amounts of carbon stored in deep forest soils.

Global atmospheric studies often don’t consider carbon in deep (or mineral) soil because it is thought to be stable and unaffected by timber harvesting. But the Dartmouth findings show deep soil can play an important role in carbon emissions in clear-cutting and other intensive forest management practices. The findings suggest that calls for an increased reliance on forest biomass be re-evaluated and that forest carbon analyses are incomplete unless they include deep soil, which stores more than 50 percent of the carbon in forest soils.

Doug Hoffman: Solar photovoltaics failing worldwide

From the Resilient Earth:

Everyone has heard the pitch for solar energy, install solar cells on your roof and get free electricity from the Sun. Sure they cost a lot up front, but they will last 25-30 years—which just happens to be about the payback time given current electricity rates from coal, nuclear and natural gas. So when solar panels start failing in two or three years the economics of solar power collapses like a house of cards. That is exactly what is happening around the world. Cheap Chinese solar panels have flooded the market and are now starting to fail at an alarming rate. Solar panels covering a warehouse roof in Los Angeles were only two years into their expected 25-year life span when they began to fail. Worldwide, solar power adopters are reporting similar problems and say the $77 billion solar industry is facing a quality crisis.

“I don’t want to be alarmist, but I think quality poses a long-term threat,” said Dave Williams, chief executive of San Francisco-based Dissigno. “The quality across the board is harder to put your finger on now as materials in modules are changing every day and manufacturers are reluctant to share that information.”

Quote of the week: Pachauri on Planes

Rajendra Pachauri, head of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (UN IPCC) doesn’t think efforts implemented by the European Union (EU) to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in European airspace should apply to Indian jet airliners:

This from the Indian business standard website via Tom Nelson:

Under the Emission Trading Scheme (ETS), the EU has threatened to fine Air India and Jet Airways (India) for not sharing their emission data. The two Indian airlines were staring at a fine of  30,000 Euro (Rs 22.60 lakh on Sunday) after the ETS.ETS, which came into effect in 2012, requires airlines to report emission data on an annual basis for flights within and to/from Europe and purchase credits in case the emission exceeds capped limits.

“We are taking up the issue first with the UNFCC, followed by ICAO rather than the other way round,” said V Rajagopalan, secretary in the ministry of environment and forests (MoEF).

Asked whether the ministry was in favour of domestic aviation emission norms for airlines, Rajagopalan said, “There are a lot of discussions going on. It’s too early to say anything.” Natarajan had even termed the EU step as a deal-breaker as far as global efforts for climate changes were concerned. However, experts are not in favour of any domestic actions.

Ed Davey has his knickers in a twist about climate sceptics

Ed Davey chooses the route taken by Gordon Brown, who famously dubbed sceptics ‘Flat earthers’ before losing the 2010 election. I wonder if the ‘list of 55′ will be revealed:

From the BBC

Energy Secretary Ed Davey is to make an unprecedented attack later on climate change sceptics.

In a speech, the Lib Dem minister will complain that right-wing newspapers are undermining science for political ends.

He is set to accuses climate sceptics of nimbyism, publicity-seeking, and “blinkered… bloody-mindedness”.

The speech at a Met Office event in London takes place as 55 organisations from green groups to manufacturing bodies issued a joint statement calling on MPs to vote in favour of the 2030 decarbonisation amendment.

The list of signatories includes SSE electricity, the Royal Society of Arts and Commerce; Dong Energy; Renewable UK; the Carbon Capture and Storage Association; the Solar Trade Association, the Renewable Energy Association; Business in the Community; the Church of Scotland; the National Farmers Union and the TUC.

Günther Oettinger: Unfair energy subsidy to German business

From Der Speigel

The audience was small and exclusive, which helps explain why little has emerged thus far of what European Energy Commissioner Günther Oettinger said at the Hotel Stanhope in Brussels on May 6. It was enough to cause something of a stir among his listeners.

For the European Commission and for Competition Commissioner Joaquín Almunia, Oettinger said during a dinner event, it is clear that price concessions for energy-intensive companies in Germany amount to an inadmissible subsidy. In the best-case scenario, he said, the Commission would ban such subsidies. But, he added, the worst case could see Brussels demanding that such companies pay back the money they had saved as a result of the discounts they have received.

Competitors and neighboring countries had filed an official complaint about these benefits with the European Commission, prompting the EU competition authority to launch an investigation. The German commissioner had sought to assure industry representatives that the process was only just beginning and that the outcome remained unclear.

That, though, seems to only have been partly accurate, which helps explain the current agitation. The scenario Oettinger outlined at the Brussels dinner is a horrifying one for parts of German industry and for the government in Berlin. The prospect of having to repay several billion euros is certainly a daunting one. Even worse, though, is that the competitiveness of entire industrial sectors would be put at risk. Also at stake is the Renewable Energies Act (EEG), a central component of Berlin’s shift away from nuclear power and toward green energy, also known as the Energiewende.

Since 2000, Germany has used the EEG to promote the expansion of renewable forms of energy. To ensure that the construction of expensive solar and wind farms is worthwhile for private individuals and investors, they receive a guarantee that the electricity they produce will be purchased at a fixed price for a period of several years.

Breaking: ConDem Coalition going ahead with Royal Mail Sellout

From the New York Times:

LONDON – Britain is preparing to privatize Royal Mail, the country’s postal service, whose origins date to 1516 and the carrying of post for Henry VIII and the Tudor court.

The government said on Wednesday that it had appointed Goldman Sachs and UBS as the lead banks to manage a planned initial public offering on the London Stock Exchange later this year. Barclays and Bank of America Merrill Lynch will also work on the sale. The planned offering could value Royal Mail at about £3 billion ($4.5 billion), according to some analysts.

Tim Yeo: About Turn – Straight Face

Heh, Tim ‘Trougher’ Yeo seems to be backpedalling furiously. “Did I say Global Warming is nearly all human caused? What I meant, of course, is that it could mostly be ‘natural phases’”. H/T @Sourmanarti.  From the Telegraph:

He’s having a Giraffe

The chairman of the Commons Energy and Climate Change committee Tim Yeo MP said he accepts the earth’s temperature is increasing but said “natural phases” may be to blame.

Such a suggestion sits at odds with the scientific consensus. One recent [bogus] survey of 12,000 academic papers on climate change found 97 per cent [of 32% of the biased sample] agree human activities are causing the planet to warm.

Mr Yeo, an environment minister under John Major, is one of the Conservative Party’s strongest advocates of radical action to cut carbon emissions. His comments are significant as he was one of the first senior figures to urge the party to take the issue of environmental change seriously.

He insisted such action is “prudent” given the threat climate change poses to living standards worldwide. But, he said, human action is merely a “possible cause”.

Asked on Tuesday night whether it was better to take action to mitigate the effects of climate change than to prevent it in the first place, he said: “The first thing to say is it does not represent any threat to the survival of the planet. None at all. The planet has survived much bigger changes than any climate change that is happening now.

Anger at windfarm ripoff. Owners name own price for not generating

You couldn’t make it up. From the Herald

CALLS have been made for the UK Government to close an “embarrassing” loophole that allows some wind-farm operators to name their own price as compensation for not operating.The issue has been raised by the regulator Ofgem, but the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) confirmed the loophole exists but will not name the exempted companies.The revelation will intensify criticism of a system that effectively makes consumers pay millions for generators not to generate.

Another victory for sceptic lobbyists : Europe’s politicians start to wake up from the Green Energy Dream

From EUractiv:

Europe’s plan to decarbonise its economy by 2050 could be turned on its head at a summit today (22 May) if EU heads of state and government sign off on measures prioritising industrial competitiveness over climate change in draft conclusions seen by EurActiv.

The draft text says that EU policy must ensure “competitive” energy prices, and declares it “crucial” that Europe diversify its energy supply and develop “indigenous energy resources” – a reference to renewable energies, but also coal, nuclear power and shale gas.

One high-profile German MEP Holger Krahmer (ALDE), hailed the end of “climate hysteria” in a jubilant press statement.

“For the first time, rising energy costs and the declining competitiveness of the European economy will be rated higher than obviously unenforceable global climate change ambitions,” he said.

“The economic and social consequences of collective hysteria can no longer be ignored, as the governments of the EU member states admit in this paper,” Krahmer added, saying that it was right to give more attention to energy sources such as gas and coal.