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.

Solar panels – an eco-disaster waiting to happen?

Image credit: solaruk.net

The same question can be asked of wind turbines and old lithium-based batteries. Experts warn of a waste mountain by 2050.
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While they are being promoted around the world as a crucial weapon in reducing carbon emissions, solar panels only have a lifespan of up to 25 years, says BBC News.

Experts say billions of panels will eventually all need to be disposed of and replaced.

“The world has installed more than one terawatt of solar capacity. Ordinary solar panels have a capacity of about 400W, so if you count both rooftops and solar farms, there could be as many as 2.5 billion solar panels,” says Dr Rong Deng, an expert in solar panel recycling at the University of New South Wales in Australia.

According to the British government, there are tens of millions of solar panels in the UK. But the specialist infrastructure to scrap and recycle them is lacking.

Surplus electricity farce: UK ‘power dumping’ into nearby countries that don’t want it

Electricity transmission [credit: green lantern electric]

The UK National Grid is now for technical reasons unable to adequately control its own electricity generation, due to excessive amounts of solar power output under favourable weather conditions. This cost the country nearly £10 million last Monday alone and is ‘likely to occur on any sunny weekends this summer’.
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Energy data firm EnAppSys has raised concerns about National Grid ESO‘s actions, stating that power is “being dumped into Belgium and the Netherlands”, reports Energy Live News.

According to EnAppSys, these countries currently have an excess of power, prompting National Grid ESO to pay high prices to offload the surplus.

Energy Live News contacted National Grid ESO for comment, but they declined to provide a statement.

Phil Hewitt, Director of EnAppSys, shed light on the situation, explaining that National Grid ESO cited it as an “energy action” taken to manage an oversupply of power and reduce generation and interconnector imports.

Mr Hewitt told Energy Live News: “The reason National Grid ESO gave yesterday (Monday 29th May) was that it was an energy action. This means they had too much power and needed to reduce generation and interconnector imports.

“They couldn’t turn off power stations because they needed them on to provide inertia to the system so this left the interconnectors as their only option. To change the output of interconnectors, they trade with counterparties that have access to the intraday markets on the other side of the interconnector. These traders quote prices that National Grid ESO then accepts to change the output of the interconnectors.

“This kind of high price reversal event is likely to occur on any sunny weekends this summer. As a response to the high energy prices last year, industrial and domestic consumers in Great Britain, Belgium, the Netherlands and France have responded by installing solar panels; this has resulted in a big increase in solar generation on sunny days.

“Electricity system operators in these countries need to investigate how to create curtailment products to encourage consumers to stop generation during these periods, otherwise the SOs will be spending a lot of money on balancing the markets on these kind of days.

“Yesterday (Monday 29th May), National Grid ESO spent £9.4 million on balancing the system by trading and using the balancing mechanism.”

Full report here.

Lord Frost: Net zero route “inevitably wasteful and damaging”

Leaving aside all discussion of whether ‘the climate’ is under any sort of human control, Lord Frost forecasts national economic pain and asks: where are the viable electricity storage options?
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Lord David Frost, the former Brexit minister has voiced significant concerns regarding the nation’s chosen path towards achieving net zero emissions, reports Energy Live News.

In a speech delivered at the Global Warming Policy Foundation to an audience in Central London last night, Lord Frost expressed doubts about the viability and potential damage associated with the current approach.

Lord Frost said: “I am going to argue that the route we have chosen to deliver net zero is inevitably wasteful and damaging; that it is totally implausible that it will boost growth and much more likely that it will reduce it; that as a result governments are pursuing completely incompatible political and economic objectives, but will not be able to do so forever; that when the crunch comes they may well double down on further economically damaging measures in order to meet the goal; and, therefore, finally, that people like me must prepare for that moment when we will need to try to get onto a more rational path with a rethink of net zero methods and, almost certainly, timetable.”

Gridlock: renewable energy projects worth billions stuck on hold

Green dreamland

Quote: ‘The system was built when just a few fossil fuel power plants were requesting a connection each year, but now there are 1,100 projects in the queue’. The climate goldrush is stalling.
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Billions of pounds’ worth of green energy projects are on hold because they cannot plug into the UK’s electricity system, BBC research shows.

Some new solar and wind sites are waiting up to 10 to 15 years to be connected because of a lack of capacity in the system – known as the “grid”.

Renewable energy companies worry it could threaten UK climate targets.

National Grid, which manages the system, acknowledges the problem but says fundamental reform is needed.

The wind and solar power myth has finally been exposed

[image credit: latinoamericarenovable.com]

All the arguments here have been expressed elsewhere – usually by climate sceptics – many times, but now the national press is more willing to let the cat out of the bag. The basic problem for renewables is energy storage, or lack of it and as the Telegraph article says, ‘The necessary miracle doesn’t exist’.
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Many governments in the Western world have committed to “net zero” emissions of carbon in the near future, says The Telegraph.

The US and UK both say they will deliver by 2050. It’s widely believed that wind and solar power can achieve this.

This belief has led the US and British governments, among others, to promote and heavily subsidise wind and solar.

These plans have a single, fatal flaw: they are reliant on the pipe-dream that there is some affordable way to store surplus electricity at scale.

King Charles III Has a Climate Record to Live Down

Image credit: BBC News

Climate alarmism with an end date is asking for trouble, to say the least. Gems such as this from 2008 — Prince Charles: Eighteen months to stop climate change disaster — spring to mind.
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This Saturday’s coronation of King Charles III marks a significant moment in Britain’s history, says Rupert Darwall.

No previous constitutional monarch has expressed his political views so openly.

Unlike his mother and grandfather, whose opinions, if they had any, remained unknown to the general public, the king’s record-setting seventy years as heir apparent to the British throne saw him define himself as a deeply committed environmentalist.

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.

In Brief: A Texas-Sized Energy Fiasco

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Is it really the Inflation Acceleration Act? Subsidies to offset other subsidies don’t save anyone money. Climate groupthink strikes again.

PA Pundits International

Austin passes subsidies for gas power to counter wind-power subsidies that have destabilized the state electric grid.

POLITICAL EDITORS

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We all remember the great Texas power outages a couple of years back, and Texans more than most. That doesn’t mean their elected representatives are learning the right lessons, as the editorial board of The Wall Street Journal notes.

What a mess. Renewable subsidies have distorted and destabilized the Texas electric grid, which resulted in a week-long power outage during the February 2021 freeze. To prevent more blackouts, Republicans in the Lone Star State now plan to subsidize gas power plants.

The Texas Senate last week passed putative energy reforms to “level the playing field,” as Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick put it. Texans will now spend tens of billions of dollars to bolster natural-gas plants that provide reliable power but can’t make money because of competition from…

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National Grid quits North Sea carbon capture project to focus on its ‘hard-pressed’ energy networks

Image credit: steelguru.com

No prizes for guessing why those networks are hard-pressed: step forward ‘net zero’ climate obsession. Lack of reliable electricity supply didn’t happen overnight.
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National Grid is quitting its foray into developing carbon capture and storage in the UK, in a blow to the Government’s net zero ambitions, says the Daily Telegraph.

The FTSE 100 company is abandoning its plans to develop new pipelines in the Humber region to take carbon dioxide emissions out to the North Sea.

Its National Grid Ventures arm is in talks to sell the onshore pipeline project to partners, and has already quit another phase of the project.

Carbon capture and storage is considered key to the Government’s plans to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050, but is not yet up and running at scale in the UK.

Power plants in the Humber region hoping to start capturing their emissions missed out on a fresh round of government support announced at the end of last month.

National Grid said it wants to focus instead on its electricity networks, which are in major need of upgrades to help cope with the rise in wind farms, electric cars and heat pumps.

A spokesman said it was “committed to managing a smooth transition” as it moved to transfer its carbon capture interests to partners.
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BP is now expected to become the system operator from end to end.

Full article here.

Russian ‘spy ships’ linked to North Sea wind farms sabotage plan

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

This puts a whole new slant on claims of wind power boosting energy security.
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Russia has a programme to sabotage wind farms and communication cables in the North Sea, according to new allegations, says BBC News.

The details come from a joint investigation by public broadcasters in Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland.

It says Russia has a fleet of vessels disguised as fishing trawlers and research vessels in the North Sea.

They carry underwater surveillance equipment and are mapping key sites for possible sabotage.

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.

Solar panel firm engaged in London Mayor’s ‘green’ scheme suspended as customers cautioned about deposits

[image credit: newsolarpanels.co.uk]

Councils and energy-related schemes don’t have a great record. Their climate obsessions, mixed with finance, are turning out to be a poor recipe for success.
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London Mayor Sadiq Khan has pledged to protect customers and prevent any losses resulting from Green Energy Together UK’s inability to deliver, reports Energy Live News.

Green Energy Together (GET UK), the primary installer for Mayor Sadiq Khan‘s Solar Together programme, has suspended operations and lost its trade body accreditation after an investigation [by the Evening Standard] – see below.

The investigation uncovered that hundreds of London homeowners were facing significant delays and difficulty recovering large deposits.

Opposing wind farms morally unacceptable – ‘expert’

Well, the alleged expert Lord Deben – shortly to quit as chair of the pompously named Climate Change Committee – would say that, wouldn’t he?
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Communities opposed to wind turbines in their local area do not have an “acceptable moral position” according to a climate change expert.

Dozens of large-scale wind farm applications are being considered as Wales tries to reach net zero, says BBC News.

Campaigners say the ambition is putting the Welsh countryside at risk and south Wales already has several wind farms.

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.

Giant UK offshore wind farm ‘at risk without government support’

The government talks about ‘investment’ in renewables. So-called cheap wind energy holds out the begging bowl again.
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Rising supply chain costs and other financial pressures are threatening the development of what could be the world’s largest offshore wind farm off the coast of Britain, says Energy Live News.

The Hornsea Three Offshore Wind Farm is expected to have a capacity of almost 3GW and generate [Talkshop comment – on a good day] enough energy to power three million homes.

Energy giant Orsted, which is behind the construction of the massive wind farm, has said it needs more government support to achieve project progress.

In a statement, Duncan Clark, Head of Orsted UK & Ireland, said: “Since the auction, there has been an extraordinary combination of increased interest rates and supply chain prices.

“Industry is doing everything it can to manage costs on these projects but there is a real and growing risk of them being put on hold or even handing back their CfDs.”

Mr Clark has called on the government to offer targeted support on investments such as tax breaks.

A government spokesperson told ELN: “The government is encouraging investment in renewable generation including through £30 billion to support the green industrial revolution…”

Full article here.

Britons paying hundreds of millions to turn off wind turbines as network can’t handle the power they make on the windiest days

Electricity transmission [credit: green lantern electric]

Not a new story, but problems are getting worse thanks to net zero obsessions. Why authorise new capacity in areas where transmission lines are known to be inadequate?
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UK consumers are paying hundreds of millions of pounds to turn wind turbines off because the grid cannot deal with how much electricity they make on the windiest days, says Sky News.

The energy regulator Ofgem has told Sky News it is because the grid is “not yet fit for purpose” as the country transitions to a clean power system by 2035.

The National Grid Electricity System Operator (ESO), which is responsible for keeping the lights on, has forecast that these “constraint costs”, as they are known, may rise to as much as £2.5bn per year by the middle of this decade before the necessary upgrades are made.

The problem has arisen as more and more wind capacity is built in Scotland and in the North Sea but much of the demand for electricity continues to come from more densely populated areas in the south of the country.

Green Energy – The Greatest Transfer Of Wealth To The Rich In History

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The cost per molecule of atmospheric CO2 ‘saved’ must be phenomenal i.e. ridiculous.

PA Pundits International

By Steve Goreham~

We are in the midst of history’s greatest wealth transfer. Government subsidized support for wind systems, solar arrays, and electric vehicles overwhelmingly benefits the wealthy members of society and rich nations. The poor and middle class pay for green energy programs with higher taxes and higher electricity and energy costs. Developing nations suffer environmental damage to deliver mined materials needed for renewables in rich nations.

Since 2000, the world has spent more than $5 trillion on green energy. More than 300,000 wind turbines have been erected, millions of solar arrays were installed, more than 25 million electric vehicles (EVs) have been sold, hundreds of thousands of acres of forest were cut down to produce biomass fuel, and about three percent of agricultural land is now used to produce biofuel for vehicles. The world spends about $1 trillion per year on green energy. Government subsidies run about…

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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.