As predicted, wind industry blackmails the UK – demands yet more subsidies – Net Zero Watch

Hornsea Offshore Wind Project, Yorkshire, England
[image credit: nsenergybusiness.com]

Forget the cheap electricity hype. The Oliver Twists of the loss-making renewables business are raising their voices again.
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London, 5 July – Net Zero Watch has urged the Government to stand up for consumers and businesses by rejecting the wind industry’s latest demands for more subsidies.

In a move that gives the lie to years of propaganda claiming falling costs, the wind industry’s leading lobbyists have written to the Government, threatening to abandon the UK unless there are hugely increased subsidies for their companies (see RenewableUK press release).

The industry is claiming that unforeseen rising costs now necessitate and justify three actions:

Irony Alert: Why Offshore Wind Power Increases Carbon Dioxide Gas Emissions

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A reminder that green industrialization is mostly fuel-powered.

STOP THESE THINGS

Wind power is delivered chaotically, it’s costly and critically depends on the weather. So, the only purported justification is said to be a reduction of carbon dioxide gas emissions in the electricity generation sector. Putting aside whether there’s any need to do so, STT is happy to attack the myth that wind power does any such thing.

One of our posts to that effect – How Much CO2 Gets Emitted to Build a Wind Turbine? – has clocked up over 130,000 hits and still attracts attention.

In the first of the pieces below, David Wojick tackles the myth that offshore wind power generation reduces carbon dioxide gas emissions, explaining that collapses in wind power output are met by using costly to run and highly inefficient open cycle gas turbines, ramped up to keep the grid from collapsing and the lights on when calm weather sets in. With the net result…

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Record Renewables Growth Fails To Cut Global Fossil Fuel Share of 82%

Fossil fuels are consistent at 82% of the global energy cake, so to speak, but the cake is getting bigger. Someone wails that ‘overall global energy-related greenhouse gas emissions increased again’ as the so-called Paris climate agreement fades further into irrelevance. Time to stop clinging to pipedreams and admit realities.
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Record increases in solar and wind installations in 2022 failed to cut into the massive 82% share of fossil fuels in global energy consumption, says OilPrice.com, amid turbulent energy markets and energy security concerns, the annual Statistical Review of World Energy showed on Monday.

Moreover, despite the record growth of global solar and wind capacity additions last year, emissions rose again, to a new record high, and further put the world off track to the Paris Agreement targets, said the report, published by the Energy Institute (EI) and partners KPMG and Kearney, which earlier this year took over the publishing of one of the industry’s most closely-watched reports from BP that had published it for the prior 71 years.

The latest report showed that primary energy demand growth slowed in 2022, increasing by 1.1%, compared to 5.5% growth in 2021, and taking it to around 3% above the 2019 pre-COVID level.

Full article here.

Green Omertà – Net Zero Watch

[image credit: beforeitsnews.com]

Conspiracy, mass delusion or a bit of both? Whatever it is, it’s not doing electricity consumers any favours.
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There is a conspiracy of silence about wind power costs, says Andrew Montford @ Net Zero Watch.

I know, I do tend to be a bit repetitive about the cost of wind power.

How many times have I explained that the data is completely clear: that it’s expensive; and that if it’s getting any cheaper, it’s only doing so very slowly. In fact, for onshore wind the trend is clearly upwards.

My determination on the subject is prompted by the refusal of anyone in official circles to accept the facts.

To a man (and woman) they are absolutely resolute in their insistence that wind is staggeringly cheap because windfarms have agreed staggeringly low-priced “strike prices” for power. And because industry bodies and Whitehall says it is.

The fact that nobody has ever delivered power at such a price cuts no mustard with these people.

Nor does the observation that windfarm developers are all saying that new construction will not go ahead without further handouts.

And of course, if you point to the hard data in windfarm financial accounts, they really, really do not want to know at all.

Continued here.

Boilergeddon could topple Germany’s heat pump-loving leaders

Air source heat pump

Does the phrase ‘climate targets’ ring any bells? This article says: ‘Germans are in open revolt against the ‘heat hammer’ – Britain must take note’. All should be aware there are more unwelcome policies like that in the pipeline.
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Ah Germany, land of economic resilience, political consensus, low debt, social compliance, manufacturing prowess, beer gardens and lederhosen.

But for how much longer? – asks Jeremy Warner @ The Telegraph.

Alone among G7 advanced economies, Germany has recently slipped into recession, and hard though it may be to believe, the Government is in some danger of being toppled by, of all things, a mass revolt against heat pumps.

Is Green Hydrogen Being Overhyped?

Credit: Scottish Power

Plenty of talk but not very much action, it seems. The author notes that ‘the small size of hydrogen molecules poses safety and greenhouse gas-related risks that must be mitigated’, while most current gas grids can’t cope with more than 20% hydrogen content anyway. Affordability looks at least questionable. Such issues will require years of effort and expense to even attempt to get to grips with.
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The global discourse on addressing climate change, energy transition, and investments is currently dominated by the topic of green hydrogen, says Dr. Cyril Widdershoven @ OilPrice.com.

The media frenzy surrounding the expanding array of projects, subsidy schemes, and international strategies is fueled by the influence of Washington’s IRA plans and the EU’s energy strategic projects.

It appears as if the choice for a post-hydrocarbon world has already been made, with green hydrogen or its derivative, green ammonia, emerging as the favored options. Western parties remain highly optimistic, as large-scale renewable energy initiatives are closely tied to these alternatives.

However, it is crucial to bring realism into the discussion. This aspect should be addressed sooner rather than later.

After court blocks renewables push, US promotes carbon capture & hydrogen

Photosynthesis: nature requires carbon dioxide

The Environmental Protection Agency will set limits on power plants’ emissions, forcing them to ‘clean up’ (as they erroneously describe it) or shut down. But carbon capture is energy-intensive and expensive, so the idea doesn’t really work – hence the very low or often non-existent level of adoption even in climate-obsessed countries, and burning hydrogen has its own scientifically proven pollution issues, contrary to popular belief.
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The Biden administration unveiled a sweeping plan to slash greenhouse gas emissions from the nation’s power industry on Thursday, one of the biggest steps so far in its effort to decarbonise the American economy to fight climate change, says Climate Home News.

The proposal would limit the amount of carbon dioxide that power plants, which are the source of more than a quarter of U.S. emissions, can send into the atmosphere, putting the industry on a years-long course to install billions of dollars of new equipment or shut down.

Environmental groups and scientists have long argued that such steps are crucial to curb global warming, but fossil-fuel-producing states argue that they represent government overreach and threaten to destabilise the electric grid.

The Environmental Protection Agency projects the plan would cut carbon emissions from coal plants and new gas plants by 617 million tonnes between 2028 and 2042.

That’s around 44m tonnes a year, about the same as the nation of Denmark pumps out.

CCS or hydrogen

The proposal sets standards that would push companies to install carbon capture equipment that can siphon the carbon dioxide from a power plant’s smokestack before it reaches the atmosphere, or use super-low-emissions hydrogen as a fuel.

“EPA’s proposal relies on proven, readily available technologies to limit carbon pollution and seizes the momentum already underway in the power sector to move toward a cleaner future,” Administrator Michael Regan said in a statement.

Full article here.
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Talkshop comment: ‘carbon pollution’ is a misnomer.

Net zero Britain will be unable to keep the lights on, MPs warn

MPs voted almost unanimously for the current energy/climate policies, but now they don’t like the look of the results. Going down the same futile route faster, in pursuit of ‘decarbonization’ targets, is their proposed solution.
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Britain will struggle to keep the lights on using only net zero electricity as the roll-out of green energy lags far behind target, MPs have warned.

Falling investor confidence and bureaucratic delays mean Britain’s efforts to produce entirely clean electricity are at risk of stalling, MPs on the cross-party Business Select Committee said.

They are calling on the government to come up with a “coherent, overarching plan” to boost green supplies — or risk missing climate targets, says The Telegraph.

Demand for electricity is expected to soar as households buy electric cars and heat pumps.

Germany shuts all of its nuclear plants – and is warned it will regret it

Isar nuclear power site, Bavaria

Arm-waving propaganda about tiny amounts of ‘carbon’, i.e. vital carbon dioxide gas, in the atmosphere has led to this decision. One obvious problem being that wind and solar energy can’t be stockpiled, or accessed on demand, hence Germany’s newly increased dependence on coal power for its electricity.
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Germany became only the third European country to shut off its nuclear power supply on Saturday when its final three reactors were severed from the grid for good, says The Daily Telegraph.

The end of German nuclear energy, a process begun by former chancellor Angela Merkel after the Fukushima disaster in 2011, came at the same time as the country seeks to wean itself off fossil fuels and manage an energy crisis caused by the war in Ukraine.

A small crowd of pro-nuclear demonstrators turned out in front of the Brandenburg Gate on Saturday to protest the end of Germany’s nuclear era.

On the rain-drenched Pariser Platz, they watched a pantomime in which the sun and wind struggled to defeat men dressed as coal and gas until nuclear power came to the rescue.

‘Damning’ report calls for major National Grid changes to prevent UK missing key wind power targets

More target mania. The way things are going, or not going, the climate-obsessed UK government won’t be able to hurt the national economy with expensive and unreliable electricity as fast as planned.
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With some offshore wind projects waiting years in the pipeline, a report commissioned by the government has called for an urgent upgrade to the UK’s National Grid in order to reach the 2030 target of installing 50GW of wind power, says Sky News.

The UK will miss a key target to install 50 gigawatts (GW) of wind power by the end of the decade unless major changes are made to the grid, according to a government-commissioned report.

The 50GW target is at the heart of the government’s plans to phase out more polluting types of electricity generation by 2035, while also boosting energy security.

Tim Pick, who was appointed last year as an “offshore wind champion” to independently advise government and industry on the development of the UK’s offshore wind sector, said installing 40GW of wind power by 2030 “may be achievable” – but this falls short of the target.

Sky News has previously reported that wind generators already make more electricity than the grid can handle because of a lack of cables to transmit electricity from the north to the south of the UK.

This has resulted in British consumers paying hundreds of millions of pounds to turn wind power off, and gas generators on, closer to the source of demand.

The independent report warns this is one of the major limiting factors to industry progress.

Full article here.

Norway rejects electricity cable project with Scotland

Norwegian hydro-electric site

Norway wants to limit the use of its own plentiful fossil fuels, so the Scotland link is a dead duck. One in the eye for ‘net zero’ obsessives.
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Norway’s government on Thursday rejected plans for an undersea electricity cable with Scotland amid a debate on the Scandinavian country’s energy independence and whether it should be exporting electricity, says The Local (Norway).

The Norwegian oil and energy ministry said it was saying ‘no’ to the NorthConnect project because the country needed to meet its own energy needs at competitive rates.

“It is important for the government to ensure that we have a power system that can at all times fulfill the basic needs of power supply,” Oil and Energy Minister Terje Aasland said in a statement.

“We need this hydro power and do not want to open it up for more exports,” he said.

Switching to hydrogen fuel could prolong ‘the methane problem’, say researchers

The imagined methane problem derived from the ‘greenhouse’ obsession, that is. Hydrogen already has a nitrogen problem, according to IPCC climate theories at least. Now it seems there’s a leaky infrastructure issue.
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Hydrogen is often heralded as the clean fuel of the future, but new research suggests that leaky hydrogen infrastructure could end up increasing atmospheric methane levels, which would cause decades-long climate consequences, says Science Daily.

Hydrogen’s potential as a clean fuel could be limited by a chemical reaction in the lower atmosphere, according to research from Princeton University and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association.

This is because hydrogen gas easily reacts in the atmosphere with the same molecule primarily responsible for breaking down methane, a potent greenhouse gas.

Energy providers to UK government: more handouts for ‘green’ projects please

An interesting (?) concept from renewables promoters here, partly to boost ‘innovative’ (generally expensive) technologies. We’re supposed to believe that bigger subsidies, or ‘fiscal incentives’, will lead to lower bills.
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The energy sector is ramping up pressure on the government to bolster investment in green projects, with Renewable UK the latest to raise concerns the country could be overtaken by rivals such as the US and EU, reports City AM.

The industry body, which supports wind and tidal energy, has called on Downing Street to bring in fiscal incentives such as new capital allowances for renewable technology.

It also favours sustained supply chain investment in the UK to expand green jobs, and speeding up the planning process – with offshore wind developers waiting an average of five years for planning approval under current restrictions, and some projects taking up to a decade to secure a grid connection.

Climate Crisis Tide Turns For Big Oil

Big oil has grown tired of the threats and accusations of activists and governments alike, and in recent months, the executives of large oil companies are starting to fire back. Trying to appease climate obsessives has got them nowhere and some of the big players have had enough.
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Constant accusations of knowing the effects of their products on the environment and lawsuits have become constant companions of oil companies in the last few years, says OilPrice.com.

The successes that activists have had—such as Friends of the Earth’s court win that obliged Shell to cut its emissions by 45 percent—have been celebrated loudly and globally.

Naturally, Big Oil tends to be the target of choice because of its size, but with governments in Europe and much of North America pledging their total support for an energy transition, the whole industry has become a target. And has been quiet about it all, probably on the assumption that trying to defend itself would make things worse. Until recently.

Achieving Net Zero In The Graveyard Of The Failed Green Religion

Leaders posing as controllers of the weather demand impossible to achieve and damaging energy policies. Is this (cartoon) where net zero is taking us? Ignoring the sun won’t work.
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According to the clerics of the Green Cult, once we blow up our last coal mine, send all diesel engines to the wreckers, stop using concrete, reinvent sailing clippers, cover the grasslands and hills with solar clutter and wind machines, and then slaughter all of our cattle… global climate will become serene – not too warm, not too cold, writes Viv Forbes (via Climate Change Dispatch).

Wild weather will cease, and there will be no more droughts, floods, cyclones, or snowstorms and no more plant and animal extinctions.

But the records written in the rocks tell a far different story about climate changes. Even when nature was in full control, it was not a serene place.

2050: The never-ending nightmare of Net Zero

Classifying this as humour may not be appropriate, but we live in hope.
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IT IS the year 2050 and Britain, relentlessly driven by the governing Labour-Green coalition, has achieved Net Zero, imagines David Wright @ TCW (The Conservative Woman).

The nation is quite unrecognisable from the comfortable, well-fed country it was in the early part of the 21st century.

Massive wind turbines cover the landscape; the old ones built 25 years ago now knocked down and lying next to the new ones because it was uneconomic to remove them.

The whole country is covered in a dense spider’s web of power lines from the multitude of wind and solar farms miles from where the power is needed.

In Unexpected Swing, Germany’s Public Now Favors Nuclear Power

Isar nuclear power site, Bavaria

Replacing what worked with what sounded good is finally running up against reality. The days of indulging in fantasy energy futures are fading. There’s so-called climate policy, and then there’s the need to survive the winters and keep the lights on. Back to the future.
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Russia’s war in Ukraine is forcing a rethink of energy security not only in Germany but also by the entire continent, and nuclear power is one of the winners, says OilPrice.com.

For decades, Germany has maintained a love-hate relationship with nuclear power. Currently, Germany has three existing nuclear reactors that produce ~6% of the country’s power supply, a far cry from the 1990s when 19 nuclear power plants produced about a third of the country’s electricity supply.

The genesis of the current state of affairs can be traced back to 1998 when a new center-left government consisting of the Greens party and Social Democrats started demanding that the country moves away from nuclear power, a long-held objective of the Greens.

Andrew Neil accuses Keir Starmer of posing as Greta Thunberg over North Sea opposition

North Sea oil platform [image credit: matchtech.com]

Another victim of ‘net zero’ numptythink? Whether it’s gas, oil or coal, it’s always better to import fuel than use your own according to climate obsessives.
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Veteran Scots broadcaster Andrew Neil has blasted Sir Keir Starmer over his opposition to new North Sea oil and gas as he accused him of posing as “the British Greta Thunberg”, reports the Scottish Daily Express.

The UK Labour leader came under fire after he told a panel at the World Economic Forum that if he became Prime Minister he would block any new explorations in the north-east of Scotland.

He joined the SNP and the Scottish Greens in agreeing that the oil and gas industry needs to be shuttered in a bid for the country to achieve its net zero goals.

However, this would leave thousands of workers in the north-east jobless, with Rishi Sunak confirming that he is aiming to protect their livelihoods.

Collision risk and habitat loss: wind turbines in forests impair threatened bat species

German forest with wind turbines

The research team ‘concludes that wind power development in forests must be avoided’, if at all possible. Not what climate obsessives want to hear, but hardly surprising news. More scientific evidence of what was already known.
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More than 30,000 turbines have already been installed on the German mainland so far, and the industry is currently scrambling to locate increasingly rare suitable sites.

Thus, forests are coming into focus as potential sites, says Berlin’s FVB research institute.

A scientific team from the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (Leibniz-IZW) now demonstrated in a new paper published in the scientific journal “Current Biology” that wind turbines in forests impair endangered bat species: Common noctules (Nyctalus noctula), a species with a high risk of colliding with rotor blades, are attracted to forest wind turbines if these are located near their roosts.

Far from roosts, common noctules avoid the turbines, essentially resulting in a loss of foraging space and thus habitat for this species.

Safety and air pollution concerns over UK hydrogen village

Eco house with hydrogen heating technology. [Image credit: emergingrisks.co.uk]

Not what the promoters of ‘clean’ energy wanted to hear. Reports of unwelcome emissions have been noted. The guinea pigs are getting nervous, not without reason.
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Residents in Redcar on Teesside have raised concerns over the safety of a pilot project designed to replace home gas supplies with hydrogen, says Energy Live News.

Gas distributor for the North East and parts of Cumbria and Yorkshire, Northern Gas Networks had previously submitted a proposal to the government and Ofgem for a hydrogen-powered area.

If the proposal is given the go-ahead, the gas company would need to replace all home and business gas appliances, including boilers, fires and cookers with new hydrogen systems.

According to the BBC, Steve Rudd, a resident in Redcar, said hydrogen was “inherently unsafe” – it has also been reported that other residents are worried about hydrogen’s more harmful emissions.