Category: Uncategorized

Uncategorized 24 Jul 2017

World’s first floating wind farm emerges off coast of Scotland–At huge cost to UK electricity users

via NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
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By Paul Homewood

h/t Joe Public

Harrabin’s been a busy boy this week!

The world’s first full-scale floating wind farm has started to take shape off the north-east coast of Scotland.

The revolutionary technology will allow wind power to be harvested in waters too deep for the current conventional bottom-standing turbines.

The Peterhead wind farm, known as Hywind, is a trial which will bring power to 20,000 homes.

Manufacturer Statoil says output from the turbines is expected to equal or surpass generation from current ones.

It hopes to cash in on a boom in the technology, especially in Japan and the west coast of the US, where waters are deep.

The Hywind project is being run in collaboration with the Abu Dhabi firm Masdar. The £190m cost was subsidised by bill-payers under the UK government’s Renewable Obligation Certificates.

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Offshore wind farms receive 1.8 ROCs per MWh, and at the current market price of about £45, this works out at £8.5 million a year. With an expected life of 20 years, Hywind’s owners can expect to earn a total of £170 million in subsidies from bill payers, on top of the value of electricity produced.

And all for supplying just 20,000 homes!

Contrast to the Carrington CCGT power station opened last year, which cost £1bn and can supply 1 million homes, with no subsidy at all.

Hywind claim that the cost of future projects may come down. But why on earth are UK bill payers being made to pick up the cost, so that Norwegian Statoil and Abu Dhabi Masdar can eventually sell their technology to Japan and the US?

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July 24, 2017 at 08:48AM

Uncategorized 24 Jul 2017

Europe’s Green Madness: German Carmakers’ Shares Crash On Allegations Of Diesel Collusion

via The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF)
http://www.thegwpf.com

Germany’s biggest car manufacturers shares plunged in early trading as investors digested allegations about decades of collusion between Volkswagen, BMW and Daimler.

Investors dumped the shares after reports, which first appeared in the German press late on Friday afternoon, claiming the companies may have secretly worked together on technology, forming a cartel that could have led to the “dieselgate” emission scandal.

The allegations come just days after Daimler recalled more than 3m of its Mercedes Benz cars for work to lower their emissions. The week before, Audi – which is owned by Volkswagen – recalled 850,000 vehicles.

How the Big Three German car makers shares have fallen

How the Big Three German car makers shares have fallen CREDIT: BLOOMBERG

Over the weekend the European Commission said it was looking into the claims. If it does investigate and finds evidence of a cartel, the car makers could face multi-billion euro penalties.

German authorities are already investigating, with Spiegel magazine, which first reported the claims, saying that evidence of collusion was uncovered by chance when prosecutors raided VW offices looking into suspicions of a separate cartel involving steel.

Between them the three car giants have had about €10bn wiped off their value since the news first broke.

According Spiegel, the car makers began working together in the 1990s in an attempt to stay ahead of foreign rivals, with engineers meeting “regularly several times a year” to discuss technology.

BMW and Daimler have been dragged into the scandal that engulfed VW after it was discovered 11m of its cars worldwide were fitted with “defeat devices”.

Full story

via The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF) http://www.thegwpf.com

July 24, 2017 at 08:34AM

Uncategorized 24 Jul 2017

Electricity shake-up could save consumers ‘up to £40bn’–Harrabin

via NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
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By Paul Homewood

h/t Various!!

Another grossly one sided report from Roger Harrabin:

Consumers in the UK could save billions of pounds thanks to major changes in the way electricity is made, used and stored, the government has said.

New rules will make it easier for people to generate their own power with solar panels, store it in batteries and sell it to the National Grid.

If they work, consumers will save £17bn to £40bn by 2050, according to the government and energy regulator Ofgem.

The rules are due to come into effect over the next year.

They will reduce costs for someone who allows their washing machine to be turned on by the internet to maximise use of cheap solar power on a sunny afternoon.

And they will even support people who agree to have their freezers switched off for a few minutes to smooth demand at peak times.

They’ll also benefit a business that allows its air-conditioning to be turned down briefly to help balance a spell of peak energy demand on the National Grid.

Among the first to gain from the rule changes will be people with solar panels and battery storage. At the moment they are charged tariffs when they import electricity into their home or export it back to the grid.

The government has realised that this rule must change because it deters people from using power more flexibly in a way that will benefit everyone.

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Firstly, the claimed savings of £17bn to £40bn are cumulative, not annual, as some may infer. In other words, the annual savings may be as low as £500 million on average, and most will not accrue for many years yet.

Secondly, the savings figure comes from an old OFGEM report published last November, which stated:

This could save consumers between £17-40 billion by 2050 according to research by Imperial College and the Carbon Trust.

Note the word COULD, and not WILL, which Harrabin writes.

In any event, the Imperial College analysis, which I covered here, involves an awful lot of other things than households having solar panels.

But the real issue is that these savings, even if they occur, will not be savings compared to what people pay for electricity now. The Climate Change Act will, according to some estimates, have cost the country £319bn by 2030. This cost will only skyrocket after 2030.

So we may save the odd £500bn a year or so, but this will be set against an extra £15bn or more, that the Act is costing.

For some reason, Harrabin forgets to mention this!

There is also the £12bn cost of rolling out smart meters, on which this whole idea depends, which does not appear to be in any of the calculations.

It is highly unlikely anyway that solar panels/batteries will yield any significant savings, as they will provide very little power in winter, when demand peaks. There is certainly currently no battery technology which can store enough power in summer to last through the winter months.

The main effect of these proposed new regulations will likely benefit rich homeowners with solar panels, at the expense of other bill payers. It is hard to think of a more regressive fiscal policy.

The cost of producing electricity in total will barely be affected, and if some people pay less, others are going to end up paying more.

This BBC article encapsulates the fact that Harrabin has long ceased to be an objective reporter on green issues, and is little more than an enthusiastic cheerleader.

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July 24, 2017 at 08:18AM

Uncategorized 24 Jul 2017

US Summers Are Getting Much Cooler

via The Deplorable Climate Science Blog
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Every single metric shows that summer maximum temperatures are cooling in the US, and that heatwaves are becoming shorter, less intense and covering a smaller area.