Great post from blogger ‘Autonomous Mind’.
It’s been documented and explained for years by Richard North and Christopher Booker. But those who have not seen their many warnings about what was in store for us as a result of policies, that so many people cheered for being ‘green’, might benefit from this very quick summary that Booker puts in his column today.
Two weeks ago, in a column headed “It’s showdown time for our insane green energy policies”, I observed that this is the moment when the roof is finally starting to fall in on a collective flight from reality that I have been reporting here for years.
But what few people yet realise is how far this catastrophic mess we are in was not only predictable, but has also been quite deliberately brought about, through the Government’s own policies.
Their central aim, though never openly explained, has been twofold. One leg has been…
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Tallbloke's Talkshop 
It was pleasing to see that I was the top commenter on Christopher Booker’s article.
They must have been hoping that ever-higher prices would put enough of a brake on demand to prevent the embarrassment of power cuts, which have in the past been known to be the kiss of death at the ballot box. The side effects on low-income households and industry seem to have been ignored until now.
When energy companies openly say it’s not profitable to build new generating capacity because they’re not on a level playing field with renewables, the writing is on the wall.
‘If the UK’s environmental policy is defensible, it should be defended. If not, the government should repeal or renegotiate the laws and treaties in which these commitments are enshrined.’
http://www.thegwpf.org/ft-britains-energy-market-perestroika/
I seem to recall there’s already a mechanism in the Climate Change Act allowing targets to be changed if ‘the facts’ change.
Roger, I commented on the original thread about one of the posters there, I posted
“Dagasnnr 27/10/2013 at 5:18 pm
Another brainwashed fool coming to a site like this and expounding warmist dogma, I admire their spirit, but not their stupidity, remind anyone of adamin berlinio on Tallbloke’s talkshop?
No data just recycled nonsense.”
Remember Adam and his website which hasn’t seen anything new since June?
My niece’s 20 year son is just like Adam, completely brainwashed that the Earth needs saving, without having any real facts. He is full of hand waving angst, but has done nothing about it at all and when confronted with facts just keeps repeating the same lines of dogma, it is very sad to see.
He believes that the country should be covered in Wind Turbines and every building should be covered in Solar Panels to get all the “Free Energy” that they produce, he is completely clueless while taking total advantage of every aspect of modern living provided by that Dirty Carbon.
I agree with everything said in the article on Autonomous Mind, I just hope the MSM will continue to change it’s mind and role in the big fraud.
Oldbrew,
I really don’t believe they thought it through at all (or were capable of thinking it through) or had any idea of the consequences. That’s how they came to let Bryony Worthington play a leading role in drawing up the CCA. Cameron in particular seems a little surprised by all this.
There was going to be plentiful cheap power from windmills which were “at the start of their technological development”, and millions of green jobs as Britain lead the way in the new decarbonised economy of the future………..
Now it’s a scramble to blame the wicked power companies and the other lot, and find the best way to put a sticking plaster on the vote-losing issue of energy bills. All three Westminster parties tread carefully round the root cause of course
I do not see how the governments guarantee of 9p/kWH to EDF (required by them before they would contemplate building) has anything to do with windpower.
It prices electricity generating costs from nuclear at 9p/unit It does not stipulate that any of this cost must be payed over to wind operators. It all seemingly goes in the pockets of EDF and the chinese:
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/oct/21/britain-nuclear-power-station-hinkley-edf
“The 35-year deal, struck at £92.50 per megawatt hour, is twice the current wholesale market rate for electricity, and will be attacked by some as a massive subsidy to help another non-carbon fuel, with the funds going to the French taxpayer and the Chinese government, which has a minority stake to build the new plant at Hinkley C in Somerset.
In details released on Monday morning, the strike price – the fixed price at which output will be sold – has been set at £89.50 per megawatt hour for electricity produced at the new power station. That price will be fully indexed to consumer price inflation. But the price, at 2012 prices, is dependent on EDF moving ahead with a second plant, Sizewell C, in Suffolk. If it decides not to proceed, another £3/MWh will be added to the strike price for Hinkley, bringing it up to £92.50/MWh”.
The cost of this reactor is £14e9
The cost of a 1MW wind turbine is £2e6
7000 turbines could therefore be built for the same cost
These would on average generate 2.5GW compared to 3.2GWH of Hinkley C
Decomissioning wind is cheap.
thefordprefect says:
October 28, 2013 at 12:51 pm
And Coal would be much much cheaper.
thefordprefect says:
October 28, 2013 at 12:51 pm
Wind Turbines are no use for base load which is the main use of Nuclear.
They are also pretty useless in cold still conditions which we experience in the UK.
Nuclear power produces reliable base load generation and it’s more compact. Onshore windfarms are increasingly unpopular and offshore windfarms have their own problems including much higher expense.
However, I don’t think the government has negotiated a good deal on Hinkley C at all, and this is because of the position they’ve put themselves in over the years.
This is all to do with the governments commitment to emissions targets, and requirement for CCS etc, not the cost of nuclear power being paid to wind farm operators.
cosmic says:
October 28, 2013 at 1:39 pm
I agree completely, the original article outlines the real reasons for our current dire Energy situation.
FordP: “Decomissioning wind is cheap.”
Extremely cheap, since there’s no regulation in place to require the WindCo’s to remove the enormous chunks of concrete and steel left in the ground afterwards…
And how will the load be balanced when the wind turbines over or underproduce?
The BBC reported in May this year that:
– The government expects subsidy for biomass to be £442m-£736m in 2016/17.
– Drax alone expects subsidies of more than £1bn in coming years from people’s electricity bills
– Drax will burn seven million tonnes of plant material a year. It will have to import 90% of its biomass, mostly from the US.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22630815
We’re paying for all that, like it or not. Not to mention the combustibility i.e. fire risk of dry woodchip and the clogging up of road and rail with wood freight.
Nuclear plants require that the National Grid hold at least one turbines worth of spinning reserve – 1.6GW for the new plant? just in case of a single failure (as happened this morning 2013-10-28).
A large windfarm “scram” would probably cause 200MW drop much easier to handle. Currently CCGT generators “easily” handle the 17GW daily variation. Doubling wind would simply make the required CCGT min op to approach zero wind varies slowly and can to some extent be predicted.
Doubling wind capacity should be possible.
Check the generation status here:
http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/
Here is a life cycl assessment for a wind turbine:
Click to access DWSDownload.aspx
Do you have a comparable one for a Nuclear station?
for dungeness A this is/was planned.
“On 31 December 2006 the A station ceased power generation. It is anticipated that defuelling will be completed by 2009, the turbine hall demolished in 2010 to be replaced by an intermediate level waste store in 2014. The waste store and reactor building will then be placed on a care and maintenance basis until 2103, with final site clearance and closure by 2111. Decommissioning is estimated to cost £1.2 billion. An alternative proposal has been made to accelerate cleanup for completion by 2030”
90 years of care and maintenance!!!!
Worth a read:
http://rt.com/op-edge/uk-energy-bills-big-six-547/
thefordprefect,
This is all beside the point.
Not even the most ardent fans of nuclear power think that Hinkley C isn’t a rip-off of astronomical proportions and it’s certainly not where we should be.
However, the fact is that there’s a perceived need for base load power generation coming on line in a few year’s time, otherwise the lights start to go out. Now because of the CCA and EU legislation this has to be (or class as) low emission, coal with CCS (which has never been got to work) or biomass schemes such as Drax, both of which are hugely expensive and can be dismissed. We can forget schemes such as the Severn Barrage, and all sorts of other fanciful nonsense. They’re not keen on fracking and a 2nd dash to gas That pretty much leaves us with rip-off nukes like Hinkley C.
Now we’re starting to see the political reaction to higher energy bills and the elastic band and chewing gum solutions cobbled together, such as a short freeze on energy prices and a windfall tax on suppliers. Imagine what blackouts would do.
As for more windmills being the answer, you don’t have to convince me, you have to convince the government, and it’s rather looking like they’re getting rather fed up with windmill salesmen.
My solution would be to dump the CCA and the EU both, forget about CO2 and assess renewables on their merits (approximately zero), then go for coal, gas and nukes, if nukes were available on much better terms.
A large windfarm “scram” would probably cause 200MW drop much easier to handle.
Cloud Cuckoo land, Wind Generation varies up to 5GW on a regular basis, the Link you provided shows that.
You have obviously been brainwashed in to believing Windmills are good things for Britain.
A C Osborn says: October 28, 2013 at 7:31 pm
A large windfarm “scram” would probably cause 200MW drop much easier to handle.
Cloud Cuckoo land, Wind Generation varies up to 5GW on a regular basis, the Link you provided shows that.
A large turbine failing can cause 500MW to 1.6GW of instant unpredictable loss. The National Grid Has to keep instantly available spinning reserve to cover this loss This failed on 27th may 2008 when 2 failures occurred causing large areas of the grid to be shut down
Click to access PublicFrequencyDeviationReport.pdf
I used the term scram (incorrectly) to refer to a connection fault on the output of a windfarm and assumed the whole array gets cut – absolute worst case. The variation due to wind strength (7GW max) is slow and is currently easily handled. It does not require spinning reserve (very expensive)
There is generally about 1.5 GW of so called spinning reserve
NG pays to have up to 8.5 GW of additional capacity available to start immediately but not running, referred to as warming or hot standby, that is ready to be used at short notice which could take half an hour to 2 hours to bring on line
A similar amount of power stations (8–10 GW by capacity) are operable from a cold start in about 12 hours for coal burning stations, and 2 hours for gas fired stations.