Yes, myurr, agreed. I cannot believe WB is complaining about subsidies to fision and nuclear power.
So, all right, as you wish, numbers and dense prose for dense people.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... ble-energy
"...the government's and other agencies' promotion of wind turbines came about because of lobbying by industrialists, and not because of straightforward science or economics. Wind turbines are designed to last about 25 years, after which they must be dismantled.
Within that time they will be profitable for the industry and investors only because of renewables obligation certificates (ROCs), which are part of a system that obliges electricity supply companies to progressively source more of their energy from "renewables"
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03/22 ... rmal_fail/
"... the wind industry remains vulnerable on Government kindness, in the shape of feed-in tariffs (FITs). FITs are a form of wholesale price-fixing, introduced to stimulate investment in new energy sources. If consumers' desire for cheap energy was allowed to be met by the market, it would lift millions of poor people out of fuel poverty. But then wind farms wouldn't be economical at all.
It's a uniquely inefficient technology. Windmills must be shut down if the wind blows too hard. And,
quite often during the December cold snap, wind plants used more electricity than they generated – just when the electricity was needed the most. (Electricity is drawn from the grid for yaw control, lighting, de-icing, pumps and to power the control mechanisms.)
....
generosity can't go on forever... even as a method of reducing CO2 emissions, wind remains singularly hopeless. Denmark has been the biggest European investor in wind energy, yet still gets half of its electricity from coal-fired power stations – as much as it did before.... Not all renewables are quite as harmful to humans or the economy, it should be stressed, as wind turbines..."
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/34596
... the Netherlands is reducing its targets for renewable energy and slashing the subsidies for wind and solar power. It has also given the green light for the country’s first new nuclear power plants in almost 40 years. Why the change?
Wind and solar subsidies are too expensive. Holland thus becomes the first country to abandon the EU-wide target of producing 20 percent of its domestic power from renewables.
Italy’s government passed a decree to stop solar energy and deep cuts in wind energy due to their high costs to consumers and technical problems integrating these sources into the existing infrastructure.
Lawrence Solomon reports that December 2010 was a bad month for subsidies.
Spain slashed payouts for wind projects by 35% while denying support for solar thermal projects in their first year of operation. This latest round of Spanish cuts followed announcements in November that payouts for solar photovoltaic plants would be cut by 45%.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/dailypolitic ... y_not.html
"
....under the government's Renewables Obligation electricity companies must buy power generated by onshore turbines at twice the market rate.
This 100% higher price is then passed on to the rest of us in higher electricity bills. (The price for offshore generated power enjoys, I'm told, an even higher officially-mandated mark up).
So it's not so much a subsidy in which government doles out billions of our money to keep the turbines going. It's an artificially high price they are empowered by law to charge to keep them going, which is then passed on the rest of us. Otherwise, as I understand it, the turbines would be uneconomic. You may conclude that is as much a subsidy as a straight taxpayers' grant.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/colu ... power.html
" the media mindlessly parroted a claim that its 240 turbines will be able to generate 1200MW, "enough to power 820,000 homes". In fact, thanks to the intermittency of the wind, their actual output would average little more than 300MW, equivalent to the needs of only 125,000 homes. Yet
for this we will be paying three times the market rate, including a subsidy of £250 million a year. For the same capital cost of £3.6 billion, we could build enough gas-fired power stations to generate 15 times the amount of electricity, continuously, without a penny of subsidy and without ruining the views off the Jurassic Coast, which is a World Heritage Site for its natural beauty."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy ... costs.html
".....Whatever their environmental benefits, wind farms are pushing energy bills up.
Their profitability depends on a hidden subsidy that is paid for entirely by you and me in our electricity bills. By 2020, this subsidy could amount to as much as a third of the whole bill. Big industry is beginning to wake up to the fact, and complain. Individual consumers haven't generally noticed.
In 2007, Tony Blair, making a grand European gesture in the knowledge that he would not be around to pick up the tab, committed Britain to producing 15 per cent of its energy consumption from renewable sources by 2020. This meant building wind farms, the only green technology ready in time (broad smiles on the faces of our German and Danish fellow Europeans who are supplying much of the hardware). How would this be funded? Step forward the then chancellor, Gordon Brown, who produced a system to which the word "byzantine" hardly does justice.
Every supplier of electricity to consumers was set a green energy target. Those that failed to meet the target were to be fined. But they could avoid the fine by buying renewable obligations certificates (ROCs) from green generators such as wind companies. This initiated a trade in ROCs that makes wind energy much more valuable than it would otherwise be in the marketplace.
While a megawatt-hour of electricity may only be worth £40, an ROC for the equivalent amount of green energy might be £50: total price £90 - the whole of which can be charged directly back to the bill paid (perhaps unknowingly) by us, the consumers. Today's cost of £1.4 billion is expected to rise to £5 billion by 2020....
http://www.thisisscunthorpe.co.uk/news/ ... ticle.html
The average turbine receives income of about £500,000 a year. So, for a typical turbine, the community benefit of £2,300 a year will be paid out from an income of about £500,000, or roughly 0.5 per cent. Dr John Constable, director of policy and research said:
"The wind farm industry is taking our money with one hand and expecting us to be grateful for the small change offered with the other. Many will perceive community benefit of this kind and scale as adding insult to injury, and the plan seems unlikely to be persuasive."
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/business/ ... 896287.ece
"..
on December 30, an exceptionally still day, Britain's 3,000 operational wind turbines produced only 0.04 per cent of the country's power. The Energy Minister Charles Hendry told The Times that the figures proved the urgency with which other forms of low-carbon generation needed to be developed.
.... The fleet of turbines, onshore and off the coast, are thought to be capable of producing 4 per cent of Britain's electricity needs. Data obtained by The Times from the National Grid's Elexon unit reveal that for long periods in the summer wind farms produced less than 1 per cent of the country's electricity. That was repeated again in November and December. .... Mr Hendry said the data underlined what his department was trying to achieve in its electricity market reforms, which will be contained in a White Paper in the spring."
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2011/0 ... there.html
... media are beginning to wake up to the possibility that wind farms do not work in the cold - and that Germany is investing high efficiency coal plants, with a conversion factor of 45 percent, "compared to British coal sets which deliver about 38 percent.
Replacing our current coal capacity with high efficiency sets would, therefore, save vastly more "carbon" than the savings that the entire wind estate - current and planned - will deliver..."
Ask questions, do your homework, because once you let this guys in, your world is going to change forever and there is not a single thing you can do about it.
[youtube]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBYjZG8O6qE[/youtube]
"We are not against alternative energy sources... we are against this... monstrosities..."
Thanks for your vote of confidence, segedunum. I do not fiddle figures. I enter a considered argument and I adjust my calculations when people with a brain - like xpensive - show me where adjustments need to be made. I do enjoy that kind of competition. Typically people who have no leg to stand on are unable to make their point with figures. So I hope this will not be your last try in this discussion. Arguing with the past status quo is not helpful in a changing world economy. The issue of the thread is the correct way into the future and not the mistakes of the past. I just read a very intelligent comment in another BB.
