Another expensive and wasteful result of ‘net zero’ climate obsession in government, as the much vaunted renewables policy continues to prove fatally flawed, no matter how much is spent on it. One obvious problem with wind power is that the times of peak electricity demand and the times of optimal wind conditions rarely coincide. In other words, variable weather, not properly factored in by policymakers. Relying on averages won’t work either.
– – –
Britain imported a record amount of electricity from Europe last year as solar and wind farms struggled to generate sufficient energy in the wake of coal and nuclear power plant closures, says The Telegraph.
The UK forked out £3.5bn on electricity from France, Norway, Belgium and the Netherlands last year, accounting for 12pc of net supply, according to research from London Stock Exchange (LSEG) Power Research.
According to official data, France accounted for around £1.5bn of power sold to the UK in the year to November 2023 while Norway earned around £500m.
Electricity imports were brought to the UK via the growing network of interconnector cables designed to boost the collective resilience and energy security of neighbouring countries.
But closures of British power stations means the traffic is increasingly one-way with the UK instead becoming dependent on its neighbours.
Angus MacNeil, chairman of the Commons energy select committee, said he supported the creation of interconnector cables between Britain and its neighbours because they boosted energy security, but said flows should be balanced across the year rather than largely one way.
“The French will be rubbing their hands – it’s easy money for them,” he said.
“The ideal is for the flows to be neutral overall in terms of both the flows of power and of money.”
Britain’s capacity to generate electricity has been impacted by the closure of coal-fired power stations such as West Burton A in Nottinghamshire last March and nuclear stations such as Hinkley Point B in late 2022.
New wind and solar farms can compensate to some extent but they are intermittent, meaning spells of low wind or heavy cloud – a phenomenon known as dunkelflaute – can reduce output. [Talkshop comment – leaders seem keen to ignore this].
Met Office records have shown that wind speeds last year were below the 20-year average for 11 of the 12 months to December.
Full article here.
Tallbloke's Talkshop 
The French are also raking the money from the Germans because they foolishly shut down their nuclear power plants.
The real problem is the politicians virtue signalling to other politicians and not caring about those that elected them but we shouldn’t forget the so called scientists that started the whole global warming stupidity and the UN that has continued it.
Question! Who ‘profits’ the most from all of this this?
Kind regards, Ray Dart (AKA suricat).
and yet Airstrip One is sitting on HUGE reserves of gas and oil that merely need to be drilled and fracked. Could be in production in less than a year. Totally stupid suicidal morons heading for a disaster with the lights on and the horns blowing.
Here in the US, in the northwest corner, the big coastal population areas are paying the Canadians prime dollar for hydro power during the high demand times that coincide with lack of wind, then the wind comes up during low demand times so they sell highly discounted electricity to the Canadians to pump water back up into the reservoirs. Rinse, repeat.
Airstrip One is sitting on HUGE reserves of gas and oil that merely need to be drilled and fracked. Could be in production in less than a year. Totally stupid suicidal morons heading for a disaster with the lights on and the horns blowing.
Here in the US, in the northwest corner, the big coastal population areas are paying the Canadians prime dollar for hydro power during the high demand times that coincide with lack of wind, then the wind comes up during low demand times so they sell highly discounted electricity to the Canadians to pump water back up into the reservoirs. Rinse, repeat.
If someone had told me this back in 1960 I’d have called them a fool. Oops.
The exporters aren’t selling cheap if they know the importer is running out of options at home. Electricity is a *now* game.
“oldbrew says:
January 22, 2024 at 9:47 am
The exporters aren’t selling cheap if they know the importer is running out of options at home. Electricity is a *now* game.”
No it isn’t oldbrew! Natural gas is CH4 which is the nearest to the use of ‘hydrogen’ that you can get that produces the ‘least’ CO2 and mostly ‘WV’ (water vapor) for any ‘combustible fuel’ that we can use from a ‘fossil fuel’ origin.
Electrical storage is difficult, but the storage of a ‘hydrocarbon’ is ‘easy’.
Why wouldn’t/shouldn’t we maximize our ‘storage/use’ of ‘CH4’ (natural gas) to reduce our CO2 emission?
Kind regards, Ray Dart (AKA suricat).
Oh darteck, I’ve just about had my fill of knowall idiots this past few days, due to this local wee storm and it’s effects Locally. (thankfully) but when we get a bad storm it didn’t ever appear on the radar.
So as you say about Methane. 1. Farming & CH4 maybe the pundits / boffins are Telly addicts and easily get confused. Our Cows do not appear on Channel 4 but it seems their existence is conflated with a TV channel
2. Burning Hydrogen produces ONLY water vapour…. ahuh, where did I hear something about that before…. all this rain / snow. Heat producing water vapour per SQUARE METRE of Hydrogen burner wow! That’s bound to be COOL!
“but the storage of a ‘hydrocarbon’ is ‘easy’.”
Storage of “carbon” – AKA “coal” is easier still, darteck!
Ray – notice I said ‘when you’re running out of options.’
No good having spare gas and coal if the places to burn them are already maxed out.
Published: 23 January 2024
Identification of weather patterns and transitions likely to cause power outages in the United Kingdom
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-024-01217-w
Can anyone find a reference to *lack of* wind in this new research? I couldn’t – only wind speed, gales etc.
Guys, for many years I’ve predicted that “Global Warming” isn’t accurately measured in ‘temperature’, but could be more accurately measured within/by the activity of the ‘hydrological sphere’.
‘WV’ (water vapor) is a more ‘radiative insulator’ than ‘CO2’ (carbon dioxide) if you believe the ‘radiative cooling of Earth’ theories that abound. However, CO2 is only reduced by Earths ‘vegetation’ (which is reducing due to ‘human activity’), but ‘WV’ is reduced by its ‘natural activity’ to ‘condense’ back into ‘water’ when it reaches ‘altitudes and temperatures’ where it ‘condenses’ back into ‘water’ as ‘rain’ (WV possesses ~3/5 the density of most other atmospheric gasses, thus, the ‘gas’ (WV) rises in Earths atmosphere to ‘condense’ again as ‘rain’). The ‘precipitation of rain’ also causes a ‘diffusion pump’ effect which drags the ‘local atmosphere’ downwards causing a local weather event.
What is the difference between ‘CO2 and WV’?
The temperature of the altitude that Earth ‘radiates’ its heat shall ‘alter’ if CO2 is responsible for this, but the ‘altitude’ shall be ‘~unchanging’ should WV be responsible for this.
Are we using the ‘best indicator’ for “Global Warming”?
I’m out of words for now!
Kind regards, Ray Dart (AKA suricat).
Hmmm, like farming then? Get paid “peanuts” to produce food and pay thru’ the nose for INPUTS … but we “WE” but not me, like it, according to the media Progs ( in UK, at least).
So who in you favoured land made THAT deal? After all the Infrastructure has to be paid for, n’est pas ?
Ray Dart: However, CO2 is only reduced by Earths ‘vegetation’ (which is reducing due to ‘human activity’)
CO2 has mainly been reduced over the last millions of years by plankton fixing it from the air into their shells as calcium carbonate, dying, and sinking to the seabed to form limestone.
Vegetation has been increasing, largely due to the recent increase in airborne CO2 (whatever its source).
https://www.nasa.gov/technology/carbon-dioxide-fertilization-greening-earth-study-finds/
“CO2 is only reduced by Earths ‘vegetation’ (which is reducing due to ‘human activity’)
It seems that in fact as a result of increasing CO2 and temperature vegetation is increasing quite substantially.
Greening of the Earth and its drivers
Abstract
Global environmental change is rapidly altering the dynamics of terrestrial vegetation, with consequences for the functioning of the Earth system and provision of ecosystem services.
et how global vegetation is responding to the changing environment is not well established.
Here we use three long-term satellite leaf area index (LAI) records and ten global ecosystem models to investigate four key drivers of LAI trends during 1982–2009.
We show a persistent and widespread increase of growing season integrated LAI (greening) over 25% to 50% of the global vegetated area, whereas less than 4% of the globe shows decreasing LAI (browning).
Factorial simulations with multiple global ecosystem models suggest that CO2 fertilization effects explain 70% of the observed greening trend, followed by nitrogen deposition (9%), climate change (8%) and land cover change (LCC) (4%).
CO2 fertilization effects explain most of the greening trends in the tropics, whereas climate change resulted in greening of the high latitudes and the Tibetan Plateau.
LCC contributed most to the regional greening observed in southeast China and the eastern United States.
The regional effects of unexplained factors suggest that the next generation of ecosystem models will need to explore the impacts of forest demography, differences in regional management intensities for cropland and pastures, and other emerging productivity constraints such as phosphorus availability.
https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate3004
Saighdear says:
January 24, 2024 at 8:46 am
“Hmmm, like farming then?”
Non. Pas de tout! Let’s continue in ‘English’ for UK readers.
The ‘only’ reason for ‘inflationary forcing’ is the ‘dramatic increase’ in ‘energy cost’ (I’ll not include the recent Red Sea conflagration here, or ‘EU exit’ problems). Every process to effect the ‘final product’ in the shops/services requires ‘energy’ to further the product/service along the ‘supply chain’.
Any policy ‘claim’ (AFAIK) for a/the ‘reduction’ in ‘inflation’ falls into the region of a ‘natural fiscal drag’. IOW, it takes ‘time’ for any ‘change’ to ‘percolate’ through the ‘supply chain’ before it ‘stabilises’!
I fully realise that the ‘Farming Community’ is at the ‘front end’ of this ‘supply chain’ and is the ‘most affected’ by ‘energy price fluctuations’, but this ‘fiscal drag’ should ‘eventually’ stabilise to make your claim for ‘increased pricing’ viable.
This increase in your prices are viable! Stay ‘solvent’! The ‘market’ ‘will settle’, eventually.
Hope this helps.
Best regards, Ray Dart (AKA suricat).
Apologise for wandering ‘off thread’ here TB, but there are other issues raised within this thread.
No problem Ray. There are a whole raft of ‘interconnected’ issues.
Good article here about steel production and energy costs.
https://www.briefingsforbritain.co.uk/steel-yourselves-you-might-not-like-this/
Yes n No darteck, …. huch, TB ‘s kinda said what I was briefly going to say!
Between a Generational thing and City / urban dwellers & voters, it is plainly an Uphill struggle Vis. a recent comment where the author appears to have NO IDEA about rural life ( Maybe’s a AI thingy) “where power outages are most common , telephone lines more often than not , are not underground, they are also overhead, if the economics of providing the electricity supply requires it to be delivered overhead , then the same economic circumstances usually dictate that the phone/internet supply will also be overhead, if your power is overhead but your ‘phone’ supply is underground, that’s not the norm , but is irrelevant anyway” sic. Just WATCH modern TV progs about the outdoors and it is plain for anyone to see!
Maybe ITV Drama department should get involved … better results than from retired Auntie. THis is all old news but powers that be just don’t want to know – are they all budding vicars or Bishops? or should I be saying Muddling ?
Still can’t ‘cut’n’paste’, guess I need to use the keyboard (note to self, sort out your computer).
tallbloke says:January 26, 2024 at 11:04 am
“No problem Ray. There are a whole raft of ‘interconnected’ issues.
Good article here about steel production and energy costs.”
Thus, we can no longer produce ‘virgin steel’ at a competitive price. This also implies that our ‘prices paid’ for electrical energy are too high to be competitive with the/any suppliers in competition.
Our energy resources are too costly, raw materials (iron ore and coking coal) are depleted and need ‘import’ (which is made more costly due to Red Sea blockade) and we’ve currently ‘plenty’ of ‘scrap steel’ lying around in our ‘scrap sites’. However, the ‘steel’ mentioned from ‘scrap sites’ isn’t what we would use for ‘iron, or mild steel’. This would be a ‘super pure’ steel (produced from the ‘arc process’) for ‘other use’.
The reduction in ‘electrical energy cost’ would not only benefit our production of ‘virgin steel’, it would also benefit household energy pricing (do we want to increase our export of ‘virgin steel’? I doubt it., thus, a ‘reduction in energy price’ to ‘household users’ seems more viable for an increasing uptake of ‘users’, which may well increase a property for the uptake towards an increase in population of the overall populace).
Kind regards, Ray Dart (AKA suricat).
PS. I don’t ‘any longer’ understand how this ‘thread’ relates to “rubbing their hands”!
darteck says: January 29, 2024 at 5:37 am
Further to my ‘PS’ (I’ve thought further on this).
Do we expect to ‘also import’ ‘virgin steel’ from France as well as ‘electrical power’?
Many ‘authorities’ within the world’s ‘Naval’ establishments maintain that the ‘UK Naval Fleet’ is ‘too small’ to maintain an/its influence in the ‘World Policy’ prescribed/proscribed by the ‘UN’, and ‘NATO’. Should the UK begin building more ‘explosive drones’, or ‘fishing boats’ with ‘IED inclusion’?
Please excuse my ‘Sinicism’, but this is a matter of ‘National Security’ where the acquisition of ‘essential elements’ are essential for the ‘protection of the UK’.
IMHO the UK ‘should/could’ maintain/develop a ‘self sufficiency’ political directive towards a full compliance with both the UN and NATO. However, this comes at a cost to ‘all’ UK inhabitants!
What are your thoughts (I think we’ve come ‘full circle’ here)?
Kindest regards, Ray Dart (AKA suricat).