Just two windfarms account for nearly half of £227 million cost

London, 9 January: New analysis from Net Zero Watch has revealed that the cost of paying windfarms to “switch off” has soared, from £143 million in 2021 to £227 million in 2022, an increase of £84 million, or 60%.
 
Much of the increase has been driven by the commissioning of two Scottish offshore windfarms. Moray East and Beatrice, both situated in the Moray Firth, are now receiving £100 million per year between them.

The news has generated suspicions that both are taking advantage of a loophole in the system that allows generators to be paid twice for the same electricity, with consumers footing the bill.
 
Net Zero Watch’s deputy director, Andrew Montford explained:

“Although constraints payments are widely understood as a payment to switch off, in fact the rules only require generators to keep the power away from the transmission grid. If they can divert it elsewhere, for example to a battery, they can receive the constraint payment and still sell the power.”
 
However, the findings are also symptomatic of deeper problems with the governance of the electricity system and the way renewables have been rolled out before the grid was ready to take them. 

Energy economist Professor Gordon Hughes said:
 
“It was very foolish of National Grid to agree to grid connections for new generators in the north of Scotland before upgrading the capacity of the North-South transmission lines.”

Last year, it was revealed that Moray East had exploited another loophole in the electricity system rules to delay activation of its agreement to sell low-priced power to the grid. As a result, it has been able to boost its income by hundreds of millions of pounds, again at the expense of consumers.

Net Zero Watch’s director, Dr Benny Peiser, said:

“Whether through utter incompetence, or shameful cynicism, the Government, National Grid and Ofgem have put in place an electricity system that allows renewables operators to rip off the consumer left, right and centre. They seem to hold UK households and businesses in contempt.”

Further details:

* Moray East only became fully operational in 2022, so its 2023 constraint income is likely to be higher still.

* Net Zero Watch revealed the existence of the constraint payment loophole last year. The issue has been brought to the attention of Ofgem.

* There is no suggestion that either windfarm is doing anything illegal. 

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January 9, 2023 at 04:06AM

The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has updated its coastal sea level tide gauge data which continue to show no evidence of accelerating sea level rise.

The post Sea level is stable around the world appeared first on CFACT.

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January 9, 2023 at 03:34AM

 Jan 05, 2023

Will Climate Change Really Put New York Underwater as NASA alarmists predict

By Steven Koonin

A recent (NASA)National Aeronautics and Space Administration report yet again raises alarm that New Yorkers are about to be inundated by rapidly rising seas. But a review of the data suggests that such warnings need to be taken with more than a few grains of sea salt.

The record of sea level measured at the southern tip of Manhattan, known as the Battery, began in 1856. It shows that today’s waters are 19 inches higher than they were 166 years ago, rising an average of 3.5 inches every 30 years. The geologic record shows that this rise began some 20,000 years ago as the last great glaciers melted, causing the New York coastline to move inland more than 50 miles.

There is no question that sea level at the Battery will continue to rise in coming decades, if only because the land has been steadily sinking about 2 inches every 30 years because of factors including tectonic motion, rebound from the mass of the glaciers, and local subsidence. Rather, the question is whether growing human influences on the climate will cause sea level to rise more rapidly. To judge that, we can compare recent rates of rise with those in the past, when human influences were much smaller.

The record shows how much sea level rose during the 30 years prior to each year since 1920. That rise has varied between 1.5 and 6 inches. The 5-inch rise over the most recent 30 years is higher than the century long average but isn’t unprecedented and shows no sign of increasing.

As the Earth warms, changes in sea level at the Battery will depend in part on global changes. These include the loss of ice from mountain glaciers, Greenland and Antarctica as well as the ocean’s expansion as it warms. It’s very difficult to predict these changes – many factors influence ice loss, and the oceans absorb only 0.25% of the heat flowing through the Earth’s climate system. The 30-year rises in the latter half of the 20th century were diminished by about an inch due to the filling of reservoirs behind dams and changes in groundwater around the world.

The Battery’s sea level also depends on local changes in the sea and the sinking of the land. Most important is the natural variability of winds, currents such as the Gulf Stream, salinity and temperatures of the North Atlantic, which cause variations in sea level along the entire U.S. Northeast coast. Because of these many variables, climate models can’t account for the ups and downs so evident in the records.

Despite this, the recent NASA report echoes a February National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration report predicting more than 1 foot of rise at the Battery by 2050. Such a rise during the coming 30 years would be more than double the rise over the past 30 years and more than triple the past century’s average. Even more remarkably, the NOAA report says this rise will happen regardless of future greenhouse-gas emissions. There is no way of knowing if this prediction is correct.

So while New Yorkers should watch the waters around them, there is no need to dash to higher ground. The Battery’s sea level hasn’t done anything in recent decades that it hasn’t done over the past century. And although we’ll have to wait three decades to test the predicted 1-foot rise, measurements over the next decade should tell us how quickly we’ll need to raise the seawalls.

Mr. Koonin is a professor at New York University, a senior fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, and author of “Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters.”

Read the full post with graphs Here: ICECAP

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January 9, 2023 at 02:26AM

“After completing the Feasibility Study and considering these various dimensions collectively, NYSERDA recommends that now is not the right time to prioritize Great Lakes Wind projects in Lake Erie or Lake Ontario.” (December 30, 2022)

It’s “No Go” to industrial wind in the Lakes controlled by New York State, the result of 18 months of consultations with

• Canada, Ontario, Quebec, Pennsylvania, and Indigenous Nations (via the Haudenosaunee Environmental Task Force, or HETF)
• Transmission experts
• Wildlife consultants,

as well as numerous public comment periods.

No ‘Right-wing’ conspiracy here. The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) reached the conclusion that the Great Lakes in its jurisdiction need ongoing protection. From a letter from Governor Hochul’s office to a community member and Great Lakes Activist:

On December 30, 2022, NYSERDA filed the New York State Great Lakes Wind Energy Feasibility Study and supporting technical reports as directed by the New York State Public Service Commission’s October 15, 2020 Order, and a NYSERDA White Paper that provides additional analysis around the role of Great Lakes wind projects in the context of New York State’s renewable energy portfolio and pathways to reach New York’s Climate Act goals.

The White Paper concludes that Great Lakes wind development is expected to cost more than other competing renewable energy options and highlights other considerations and data gaps that introduce risk and uncertainty to cost estimates, project development certainty, interconnection opportunities and resources. At present, Great Lakes wind does not offer a unique, critical, or cost-effective contribution toward the achievement of New York’s Climate Act goals. More information can be found on NYSERDA’s Great Lakes Wind Study website.

The full decision mentions other problems and cautions (see the quotes below and reference the link to the White Paper for a full description of the 12-step investigation and conclusions).

MAIN POINTS

ONE: “Great Lakes Wind does not provide the same electric and reliability benefits that offshore wind offers New York State.”

TWO: “The cost differential from other sources of renewables, do not fully account for additional costs associated with interconnection, infrastructure, and labor, which would require site-specific evaluations and more detailed modeling.” (Great Lakes Wind projects would be roughly 55 to 230 percent more costly for ratepayers.)

THREE: “The Feasibility Study demonstrates that the visual impacts of Great Lakes Wind, at least in Lake Erie, would be considerable given the need for a relatively limited distance from shore necessary to support a project at scale in that lake.”

FOUR: [This item combines impacts of wildlife and sediment contamination] “The impact of Great Lakes Wind on wildlife species and the environment; this issue is exacerbated by the lack of data relating to the temporal and spatial distributions of wildlife both at specific locations and across the Great Lakes as a whole, including data on aerial fauna, fish habitats, benthic communities, and human uses. Further, sediment contamination is widespread but not well mapped to support least impact site identification. And the extent and duration to which Great Lakes Wind development could resuspend or redistribute these contaminants are uncertain. Each of these issues imparts development risks and uncertainties to potential projects.”

FIVE: “To date, NYSERDA has not received bids from Great Lakes Wind projects in response to its series of annual Tier 1 solicitations.”

SIX: “After completing the Feasibility Study and considering these various dimensions collectively, NYSERDA recommends that now is not the right time to prioritize Great Lakes Wind projects in Lake Erie or Lake Ontario.”

SEVEN: “NYSERDA has not identified unique characteristics of Great Lakes Wind that reflect a component otherwise missing in the State’s efforts to achieve the Climate Act goals.”

EIGHT: “At this time, there is not sufficient available information to thoroughly assess the impacts Great Lakes Wind may have on wildlife and each lake presents different risks regarding data gaps.”

NINE:  The study notes that “further identification of areas with chemical contamination and higher resolution of contamination distribution mapping would be helpful to assess impacts of proposed projects should Great Lakes Wind Energy move forward. These types of studies could be conducted in advance of siting or be undertaken as part of the regulatory process after sites have been proposed. Mitigation methods would also need to be considered and developed, depending on the findings of site-specific assessments.”

TEN: “Taking no action now does not mean there may not be an opportunity to advance Great Lakes Wind at some point in the future. The resource may become a feasible contributor to New York State’s goals in the future as the State advances toward its mid-century goals, and the Ohio demonstration project in Lake Erie discussed herein may provide further information to help inform a decision on this matter. Additionally, upgrades in the transmission system or new interconnection opportunities could result in lower costs or create opportunities. Finally, additional studies could be undertaken to reduce environmental risk and gain a better understanding of the estimated cost and benefits of building Great Lakes Wind projects as alternative resources advance toward achieving the mid-century Climate Act goals.”

CONCLUSION

The significance of this “future looking” White Paper, cannot be overestimated. This is a cautionary signal of the risk of grandiose government-enabled, greenwashing projects to look before you leap. The economics are terrible and the ecology problematic–and this is true for proposed projects on each coast.

This is also the verdict of grassroots activism against duplicating the grid in such poor fashion. Real environmentalists, the common kind, are standing up. (Washington, DC and paid local activists, please note.)

It is laudatory that NYSERDA’s White Paper confirms what other studies, even from Ontario, Canada, ascertained. Now, will New York State legalize the expansion of natural gas by either in-state drilling or certifying new pipeline projects? And back off of the unrealistic and costly state climate plan? Sustainable energy, after all, must be plentiful, affordable, and reliable.

The post No! to New York Wind in the Great Lakes (NYS Energy Research and Development Authority verdict) appeared first on Master Resource.

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January 9, 2023 at 01:03AM