UK MPs getting serious about stopping the wind power idiocy: "The time has come to stop feeding this extraordinary cash cow"

Wind turbines in Ardrossan, Scotland. 
(image wikipedia)

Finally, the opposition against the inefficient, bird killing and landscape destroying monstrous wind turbines is getting serious in Britain:

Wind farm developers are facing a dramatic escalation of opposition from dozens of MPs who say they will fight every application in their constituencies.

The MPs, many of whom have until now only opposed particular proposals, believe their intervention will make it more difficult for planning permission to be given.

In a fresh protest against the Government’s support for onshore wind turbines, backbenchers said their constituencies had reached “tipping point” and would be ruined by further development.

They are sharing advice on running local campaigns against wind farms after the Tory head of a larger cross party group of MPs opposed to the spread of onshore wind distributed a manual on how to fight proposals by developers.

The move comes after the group of 106 MPs - 101 of them Tories - called on the Government to cut generous subsidies, which they say are driving the expansion of wind farms. In a letter to the Prime Minister in February last year they warned it was “unwise” to make consumers subsidise “inefficient and intermittent energy production”.

Geoffrey Cox, the MP for Torridge and West Devon, one of the signatories to the letter said: “There are now so many turbine applications that the whole of our district is affected. I believe we have now reached a tipping point.  ==

Mr Cox said the proposals for six turbines on privately owned farmland in Torridge followed the construction of “dozens” of turbines in the last three years.

He said: “Torridge is now facing over 60 applications. They are going to make a fundamental change to the character of this exquisite landscape, trashing an ancient and beautiful countryside for the sake of filling the pockets of developers with consumer subsidies.

“These are some of the most romantic and attractive destinations in our country and yet we are erecting giant machines which litter the countryside. The time has come to stop feeding this extraordinary cash cow.”

The UK MPs now fighting the wind turbine scam are also serving as important role models in the growing global anti wind power movement. It's time to stop the wasteful wind turbine idiocy! 

Germany on its way to become the country with the highest energy prices

Germany is well on its way to become the country with the highest energy prices in Europe. 
The senseless energy transition policy, favoring subsidized, unreliable and ineffective wind and solar power, is making Germany dependent on expensive Russian gas, and now also overpriced Norwegian hydro power:

Germany and Norway have signed a contract for a high-voltage undersea cable aimed at exchanging surplus renewable energy. The project is essential for Germany's plan to phase out nuclear power by 2022.

Construction of the North Sea underwater cable would cost between 1.5 billion and 2 billion euros ($2-2.6 billion), and is expected to be finished by 2018, Germany's state-owned KfW development bank announced Tuesday.

"This project is a major step toward the integration of German wind power in the country's energy grid, and a cornerstone of Germany's shift toward renewable energy generation," TenneT Chief Executive Martin Fuchs said.

The North Sea cable is scheduled to boast a capacity of 1,400 megawatts - the equivalent of a larger plant. It is intended to transport Norwegian hydropower to Germany in times of low wind and solar supply. Furthermore, the country's excess power from renewable sources is meant to be transported to Norway to be stored there in dams for later use back in Germany.

Denmark is already doing what Germany intends to do:

Windy Denmark is able to shift nighttime energy resources for daytime use, while Norway -- which gets almost all its electricity from conventional hydropower -- has reservoirs behind its dams that can easily store that excess power. The arrangement helps Norway mitigate some of the risk from drought and other challenges to its hydro-heavy grid, Miller said.

For Norwegians, the system is a great money-maker as well. They pay their neighbor almost nothing for the nighttime wind energy they take on since demand is so low at that time, but charge Denmark a premium for it at peak pricing hours.

"Norway is making a killing," Miller said. "Danish people pay the highest power prices in Europe."

Energy prices have already risen steeply in Germany creating huge problems for consumers and companies. But that is only the beginning. Wait until the Norwegian energy barons begin to "make a killing"!

The German dream world of windmills on water has turned into an enormous fiasco

Things are not looking good for German chancellor Angela Merkel and her government. The economy is slowing down, the euro crisis shows no signs of easing, and the chancellor´s hastily undertaken energy transition policy is turning into a huge failure: 

Germany wants to pepper its northern seas with offshore wind turbines as part of its ambitious energy revolution. But strict laws, technology problems and multiple delays are turning the massive enterprise into an expensive fiasco. Investors and the public are losing patience.
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Nothing goes according to plan. For example, in July, RWE tried to load a 550-metric-ton jacket foundation from the wharf in Cuxhaven onto an installer vessel. During loading, the elevated ferry sank into the harbor mud because the cargo was too heavy. Now the transfer has to be completely reconfigured.

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The HVDC converter stations are causing the biggest problems. They consist of giant converter platforms directly adjacent to the wind farms, where they collect the alternating current generated by the turbines, convert it into high-voltage direct current and transmit it to land via long cables.

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It is clear that the first wind farms will likely be complete by the end of 2013, but they still won't be transmitting any electricity to the mainland because the necessary outlets will be missing.

Delays and Risks

A battle has been raging over who should pay for the slowdowns. Tennet made an "unconditional grid connection commitment," says Assheuer.

But the company, which is owned by the Dutch government, cannot meet its obligations. According to a letter from the German government, it will cost an additional €15 billion to connect all offshore turbines in the first construction stage to the grid by 2020.

In light of these panic reports, the entire energy revolution has come to a standstill. Many next-generation wind farms have been put on hold for now. The industry is taking a wait-and-see approach, looking on to observe how the pioneers fare.

It is already clear that everything will become more expensive. The offshore operators are already paid up to 19 cents per kilowatt hour in compensation for electricity fed into the grid. It's estimated that the average household will pay an additional €50 next year for electricity because of the many green-energy subsidies.

The full effect of the calamities on the high seas will only become apparent after that -- and driving prices up even further.

Strict laws are to blame. Dahlke's agency, for example, requires an "environmental compatibility test" for each operator. But biologists are only slowing beginning to realize how harmful the wind turbines are to wildlife.

The turbines pose an enormous threat to blackbirds, thrushes and robins. New data show that the migratory birds orient themselves toward illuminated points in bad weather. As a result, large numbers of birds can end up flying into the flashing rotors.

Read the entire article here

"Europe´s Green Energy Capital" Scotland - myth and reality

Scotland´s First Minister Alex Salmond appears to live in his own dream world, in which he is the mighty leader of an independent "Europe´s Green Energy Capital": 

"Scotland has a target of delivering the equivalent of 100% of domestic electricity demand from renewables"

Our wind and seas hold some of the most concentrated potential not only across the UK and Europe, but in the world – our practical offshore renewables resource has been estimated at 206 GW. By harnessing around a third of this resource, installed offshore renewables capacity could reach 68 GW by 2050 – enough to meet Scotland’s own domestic electricity needs seven times. Around 20 per cent of the electricity generated in Scotland is already exported to the rest of the UK and Scotland can go far beyond this to become the green energy capital of Europe.

Salmond is also fantasizing about support for his energy hallucinations from "major international figures". However, the only one lauding his new energy empire seems to be former vice president Al Gore, who is busy cashing in on the global warming fraud in order to become the first carbon billionaire:  

Climate change campaigner and Nobel Laureate Al Gore praised Scotland’s commitment to renewables when he said: "Scotland has not only provided inspiring leadership, you are exploiting one of the greatest resources anywhere on the planet, with wind onshore and particularly offshore, all sorts of variety of windmills - and the new renewable technologies are especially important". So clearly, major international figures think we have the framework right in Scotland.

When Salmond - hopefully soon - wakes up from his green pipe dream, he has to face the real world: 

The number of homes north of the Border in “fuel poverty” is expected to have increased rapidly to 800,000 last year – more than a third of the total – thanks to rising energy bills.

If heating and electricity prices continue to spiral at the same rate, the report found that the “median household” in Scotland will find it difficult to afford their bills from this year.

It is projected that middle-class Scots will be spending 12 per cent of their income paying for electricity and heating by 2015, but the Tories warned the SNP’s focus on expensive wind power would make the situation worse.

Although ministers have focused the efforts on helping people on benefits, the study found that more than a third (38 per cent) of those in fuel poverty are middle class or wealthy.

Fuel poverty is defined as a household spending more than 10 per cent of its income on energy bills. The Scottish Government has promised to eradicate the scourge “as far as is reasonably practical” by 2016.

However, the study suggested this is a forlorn hope, noting that energy bills have risen at the six times the rate of household income in recent years. British Gas, which includes Scottish Gas, recently reported profits of £2 million a day.

Alex Johnstone, Scottish Tory housing spokesman, blamed the SNP’s “obsession with renewables”. He said: “The Scottish Government’s policy of pursuing wind generated electricity is causing household energy bills to rise, intensifying the fuel poverty situation across Scotland as a result.”

And it is getting much worse, if Salmond is allowed to continue with his obsession: 

ELECTRICITY bills will rise by at least 58% if the UK Government is to meet its renewable energy target within the next eight years, according to an industry expert.

Sir Donald Miller, who spent a lifetime as an engineer in the power industry, rising to chair both the South of Scotland Electricity Board and ScottishPower, warned the cost to households would increase by that amount if ministers were to meet their tar-get of 30% or more of electricity coming from renewable sources by 2020. It would mean the average annual electricity bill of £489 for Scottish homes would go up by £283.62 to more than £773 a year within the next eight years.
The more ambitious Scottish Government target of generating the equivalent of 100% of Scotland's own electricity demand from renewable resources by 2020 would mean even greater rises in household bills, he warned. 

The conversion of a believer in "green jobs"

Deborah Sloan is a mechanical engineer and researcher, who after completing her Masters degree in Mechanical Engineering at Stanford took a "Green Job" with a solar company because believed its potential to create clean and cheaper energy. However, soon she found out that the "green" reality was quite different from the "green" dream: 

Mitt Romney has recently taken fire not only from the Obama campaign but even from some left-leaning Republicans, for his rightful criticism of Obama’s destructive “green jobs” programs.  Not only is Mr. Romney right to criticize these programs -- and his position supported by many economic studies -- but in fact the situation is even worse than anything suggested by these criticisms. Green jobs are destroying the abilities and spirits of a whole generation of engineers. I should know. I was one of those engineers.

In 2008 I completed my Masters in Mechanical Engineering at Stanford and took a “Green Job” with a solar company. Excitingly, it seemed to match the green rhetoric--to have potential to create the incredible value of cleaner, cheaper energy.

Unfortunately, the more I learned about my job and industry, the more I realized they were fundamentally flawed.

Management said we would be competitive with oil and gas once we manufactured panels for $1.00/watt. But as a mechanical engineer, I learned most of solar’s cost is not panels themselves but “balance of system” (BOS) components like DC to AC converters, wiring, and structural mounting, adding about $3.00/watt for a best-case and typically around $4.00/watt. Coal and hydroelectric systems cost as low as $2.10/watt and $1.00/watt, respectively. Ifound no evidence that solar’s BOS costs would decrease meaningfully.

Nor did anyone have a solution to the problem that has plagued solar and wind energy since their inception: intermittency. Solar and wind energy come intermittently, with no means to store it for later use that wouldn’t add considerably to their already-high cost. Thus, the idea of a large scale solar and wind economy is farcical.

If the industry was fundamentally unproductive, so were my colleagues and I. We were wasting a tragic amount of time, talent--and other people's money--making a far inferior form of power when we could have been creating real advances in other, legitimate kinds of energy.

Just as disturbing was what these “jobs” did to people’s spirits. Every high-ranking person in solar or wind must eventually figure out, as I did, that he cannot compete in the market, that his competitive advantages are government subsidies and forced limitations on competitors.

Whatever technical advances we made didn’t solve the intractable problems, so our real victories came in forms such as the Cap and Trade Bill. I learned of the bill’s passage in the House of Representatives while driving home from a day spent on an interesting technical project. I knew my work was trivial in comparison. Our true means of revenue-generation was forcibly limiting carbon emissions, to force consumers into using energy sources like ours.

I had looked forward to beating the competition, but with superior products--and working even harder if we should lose, or if that failed, joining the competition in creating a more energy-rich world. When the goal is not out-producing but crippling of the competition, the goodwill of "May the best man win" becomes "What kills them can only make me stronger."

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Real wealth and jobs are not produced by means of subsidies extracted by force from helpless victims by the Obama administration, but by rational free people acting under their own initiative.  The sooner the government stops forcing green jobs on us, the sooner the rest of America’s wasted green workforce can join me in getting real jobs.

Read the entire article here

Greenpeace: "We don´t need such a huge amount of gas and certainly not cheap gas"

The shale gas revolution has been a game changer in the U.S. It could give an enormous boost also to Europe (which is heading for another deep recession). But that is exactly what the enviro-fundamenalist alarmists, who have hijacked the entire debate in Europe, want to prevent:  

Unless carbon capture and storage can be developed on a commercial scale, that means gas as a fuel has a limited future and should not be invested in too heavily, environmental campaigners say.

They are especially against shale gas, whose environmental credentials are questioned in Europe.

"We need natural gas as a transition fuel. However, we don't need such a huge amount of gas and certainly not cheap gas, because that would kick out not just coal, but also renewables," Greenpeace renewable energy director Sven Teske said.

Read the entire article here

Cheap and clean energy, like shale gas is anathema to "green" fanatics like Teske. These people prefer expensive Russian gas, or even "dirty" coal, rather than "American" unconventional gas, as long as they help to maintain the taxpayer funded huge subsidies for senseless "renewable" wind and solar energy. 

Merkel´s failed energy transition: Wind and solar power causing major damage to German industry

"It was 3 a.m. on a Wednesday when the machines suddenly ground to a halt at Hydro Aluminium in Hamburg. The rolling mill's highly sensitive monitor stopped production so abruptly that the aluminum belts snagged. They hit the machines and destroyed a piece of the mill. The reason: The voltage off the electricity grid weakened for just a millisecond."

Angela Merkel´s failed energy transition policy - relying on wind and solar power - is beginning to seriously damage German industrial production: 

Sudden fluctuations in Germany's power grid are causing major damage to a number of industrial companies. While many of them have responded by getting their own power generators and regulators to help minimize the risks, they warn that companies might be forced to leave if the government doesn't deal with the issues fast.
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At other industrial companies, executives at the highest levels are also thinking about freeing themselves from Germany's electricity grid to cushion the consequences of the country's transition to renewable energy.

Likewise, as more and more companies with sensitive control systems are securing production through batteries and generators, the companies that manufacture them are benefiting. "You can hardly find a company that isn't worrying about its power supply," said Joachim Pfeiffer, a parliamentarian and economic policy spokesman for the governing center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU).

Behind this worry stands the transition to renewable energy laid out by Chancellor Angela Merkel last year in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Though the transition has been sluggish so far, Merkel set the ambitious goals of boosting renewable energy to 35 percent of total power consumption by 2020 and 80 percent by 2050 while phasing out all of Germany's nuclear power reactors by 2022.

The problem is that wind and solar farms just don't deliver the same amount of continuous electricity compared with nuclear and gas-fired power plants. To match traditional energy sources, grid operators must be able to exactly predict how strong the wind will blow or the sun will shine.

But such an exact prediction is difficult. Even when grid operators are off by just a few percentage points, voltage in the grid slackens. That has no affect on normal household appliances, such as vacuum cleaners and coffee machines. But for high-performance computers, for example, outages lasting even just a millisecond can quickly trigger system failures.

A survey of members of the Association of German Industrial Energy Companies (VIK) revealed that the number of short interruptions to the German electricity grid has grown by 29 percent in the past three years. Over the same time period, the number of service failures has grown 31 percent, and almost half of those failures have led to production stoppages. Damages have ranged between €10,000 and hundreds of thousands of euros, according to company information.

Read the entire article here

The situation is fast becoming so bad for the industry that even the economic policy spokesman for Merkel´s own party, CDU, is warning about dire consequences: 

"In the long run, if we can't guarantee a stable grid, companies will leave (Germany)," says Pfeiffer, the CDU energy expert. "As a center of industry, we can't afford that."

The only solution to this growing problem is a rollback of the wind and solar power expansion, because grid operators will never be able to exactly predict how strong the wind will blow and the sun will shine! 

Wind power - A 125 year old "infant industry"

The wind power industry both in Europe and the US boasts about how competitive it has become. At the same time the wind energy people are warning about massive job-losses if subsidies and tax credits are removed or reduced. 

Thomas Pyle examines this 125 year old "infant industry": 

Congress has been supporting wind production since at least 1978 on the premise that wind is an infant industry that needs just a few more years of mother’s milk – i.e. taxpayer handouts -- to be cost-competitive with more affordable and reliable sources of energy. 

But wind has to be one of the oldest infant industries on the planet. In 1882, Thomas Edison built the Pearl Street Station in New York City—a coal fired power plant. A mere 5 years later, a Scottish academic named James Blyth built a wind turbine to make electricity and run the lights on his cabin. After 125 years of generating electricity, you would think that wind would be ready to stand on its own without special favors from the federal government, but apparently it is not.

Wind proponents have been telling us since at least the early 1980s that wind is almost cost-competitive with coal and natural gas. The American Wind Energy Association asserts that wind is “cost-competitive with virtually all other new electricity generation sources.” If so, why are wind proponents still asking for help through the Production Tax Credit?

The reason is plain. The PTC is a large portion of the wholesale price of electricity, giving wind producers the incentive to produce electricity even when they have to pay the electrical grid to take the power they generate. 

Specifically, the PTC is a credit of 2.2 cents per kilowatt-hour of electricity produced from wind (and other specified sources). The wholesale price of electricity is less than 3 cents per kilowatt-hour in some markets to about 4.5 cents per kilowatt hour. This makes the PTC worth 50 to 70 percent of the wholesale price of electricity.

The law as currently written provides the two things the wind proponents claim they want—certainty and a phase out of the tax credit. As the law stands, the tax credit ends at the end of the year. This is definitely a certain outcome and a phase out.

Wind has a long history and it continues to be expensive, inefficient, and unsustainable. It’s about time that Congress ends the Production Tax Credit once and for all.

Read the entire article here

UK wind energy policy: "Everything about this is delusional"

Wind power is inefficient and an enormous waste of money everywhere. Christopher Booker explains the sad reality of the Cameron government´s wind energy policy: 

Anyone impressed by the efficient way in which Britain has organised the Olympic Games might consider the stark contrast provided by the shambles of our national energy policy – wholly focused as it is on the belief that we can somehow keep our lights on by building tens of thousands more wind turbines within eight years. At one point last week, Britain’s 3,500 turbines were contributing 12 megawatts (MW) to the 38,000MW of electricity we were using. (The Neta website, which carries official electricity statistics, registered this as “0.0 per cent”).

It is 10 years since I first pointed out here how crazy it is to centre our energy policy on wind. It was pure wishful thinking then and is even more obviously so now, when the Government in its latest energy statement talks of providing, on average, 12,300MW of power from “renewables” by 2020.

Everything about this is delusional. There is no way we could hope to build more than a fraction of the 30,000 turbines required. As the windless days last week showed, we would have to build dozens of gas-fired power stations just to provide back-up for all the times when the wind is not blowing at the right speed. But, as more and more informed observers have been pointing out, the ministers and officials of the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) seem to live in a bubble of unreality, without any practical grasp of how electricity is made, impervious to rational argument and driven by an obsession that can only end in our computer-dependent economy grinding to a halt.

Read the entire article here

The shale gas revolution: China begins to see the light

China, the world's biggest energy user, is also one of the nations with the largest reserves of shale gas. According to government estimates, China has explorable shale gas reserves of about 25.1 trillion cubic meters, which on paper means that based on current gas consumption, there are enough gas stocks to last for the next two centuries.

China Daily

China is beginning to understand the blessings of shale gas: 

There is now a growing urgency in Beijing to further encourage the development of unconventional energy sources as it believes such steps are essential to help reduce carbon emissions and costly gas imports.

Shale gas remains an integral part of the overall energy strategy and the government has outlined a plan that will see China producing 60 to 100 billion cubic meters of natural gas annually by 2020 from shale sources.

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Natural gas is the practical solution to China's long-term energy requirements, as other unconventional sources like wind and solar power have proved to be expensive propositions, Chen says.

Though China has the largest installed capacity in wind turbines and is the largest maker of solar panels in the world, it is not safe for the energy-hungry nation to solely focus on renewable energies, experts say.

Energy demand is expected to jump sharply by 2030, when China becomes the largest economy in the world, experts say. According to the BP Energy Outlook 2030 released in January, China's energy consumption in 2030 will be more than the combined demand of the US and Europe.

During the same period the energy deficit between China's own production and consumption is expected to jump six-fold over that of 2010, according to the report. China already imports more than 55 percent of its oil requirements and 20 percent of its natural gas requirements. The over-reliance on costly fuel imports will impact long-term growth and development prospects, experts say.

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"There is no country in the world that wants to be reliant on other nations for energy supplies. The reasons for this are both economical and political," says Howard Rogers, director of the Natural Gas Research Programme at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies in Oxford, United Kingdom.

Expensive energy imports put nations in a vulnerable position, especially when there is political turbulence across the world, says Youn-kyoo Kim, associate professor of International Studies at the Seoul-based Hanyang University in South Korea.

"The US success in shale gas has already made it less reliant on imports from the Middle East. Like the US, if China achieves a shale gas revolution it will also be less reliant on costly gas imports from Russia and the Middle East. It could also pave the way for a new cooperation mechanism in Northeast Asia," Kim says.

The shale gas revolution has helped the US to become the leading nation in terms of natural gas stocks and also cut its oil imports from 60 percent of total consumption in 2005 to 46 percent. Over the next five years, the US is also set to be a leading exporter of natural gas.

"I think China is very impressed by what has happened in the US shale sector and would like to replicate that success. However, I think it will be some time before China can achieve significant volumes of shale gas output," says Rogers from the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies.

Read the entire article here

PS

China´s intention to dramatically intensify shale gas exploration is of course bad news for Putin and Gazprom. The Russian energy giant will not be able to sell as much gas to its eastern neighbor as it had hoped to do. 

And by the way, Oxford´s Rogers is probably not entirely right when saying that "no country in the world wants to be reliant on other nations for energy supplies". Germany for example appears to favor a policy that makes it reliant on Russian energy supplies.

Karl Rove has not heard about the American shale gas revolution?

It appears that Republican strategist Karl Rove has not heard about the shale gas (and oil) revolution in the US: 

Renewal of federal tax credits for wind energy can save U.S. jobs and reduce dependence on foreign oil, according to Karl Rove, an adviser to former President George W. Bush.

“We’ve got a growing economy that’s increasing energy consumption and wind energy should be part of the solution,” Rove said today on a panel at a wind conference in Atlanta. Extending the so-called production tax credit “should be a priority.”

Read the entire article here

Maybe somebody would tell Rove about this? 

The future of wind turbine maker Vestas hangs in the balance

The future of Danish Vestas, the world´s largest wind turbine manufacturer, hangs in the balance: 

Vestas Wind Systems A/S (VWS) fell the most in four weeks after a report that the turbine maker is in talks with two banks about restructuring debts after drawing a 300 million-euro ($379 million) credit line.

The shares tumbled 8.1 percent in Copenhagen after the Sunday Times reported that Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc and HSBC Holdings Plc (HSBA) demanded Vestas submit a comprehensive financial plan from Vestas. The British newspaper said Vestas hired PwC and the banks appointed Ernst & Young LLP to advise on the plan.

And it is not only Vestas that is doing badly: 

Vestas along with rivals General Electric Co. (GE) andSiemens AG (SIE) is struggling with declining turbine prices and excess capacity as nations from the U.S. to Germany rein in support for renewable energy.

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"Banks are no longer willing to finance large projects constrained by their own financial issues while delays in grid connection and legal reasons in promising offshore wind markets inhibit growth, he said. “Also, the market is in overcapacity and there is price pressure from China.” 

Read the entire article here

The crisis for wind turbine manufacturers should not come as a surprise to anybody. An industry which is totally dependent on government (tax payer) subsidies will never be successful in the long term. 

Game over for wind and solar power

Even the most die-hard propagandists of wind and solar energy, like the UN International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena), are now forced to admit that the the American led shale gas revolution is a gamechanger. An interview with Dolf Gielen, the director of Irena's Innovation and Technology Centre in Bonn, is quite revealing: 

• The question today is whether the arrival of cheaper hydrocarbons, in the form of shale gas, could also spell the end of renewable energy as a major player.
• The arrival of vast quantities of previously inaccessible hydrocarbons has driven down the price of natural gas in the US from its 2003 peak of US$20 per million British thermal units to today's $2.
• The solar manufacturing industry that has undergone rounds of bankruptcies and consolidation over the past year seems to have finally bottomed out. "We've reached a situation where most of the solar cell and module manufacturers are making losses," said Mr Gielen. 
• Already, the global economic crisis has pushed nations such as Spain and the Czech Republic to roll back subsidies that made the costs of green power more equal to fossil fuels and motivated homeowners to pitch solar panels on their roofs." (the bolded text is of course sheer propaganda, NNoN)
• "... in the long term, the failure of nations to come to a meaningful climate change agreement to curb greenhouse-gas emissions has sapped confidence in cap-and-trade carbon markets and investor appetite for projects from carbon burial to nuclear to solar."

Still these solar and wind energy propagandists cling to futile hopes about some kind of a miracle - which will not happen - for wind and solar energy after 2030:

Continued low prices pose a threat to the pace of growth for wind and solar energy, at least until 2030, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena), a United Nations agency with headquarters in Bonn, Germany, and Abu Dhabi.

In power generation, renewables account for a little more than 20 per cent of the world capacity, and Mr Gielen forecasts that will rise to 50 per cent with new hydropower, wind and solar plants that are becoming increasingly cost competitive.

It is highly unlikely that renewables - even if they would include hydropower - will rise to the 50% in the foreseeable future, when one considers the abundance of shale and conventional oil and gas available. And even the 20% capacity claim for today is misleading. If one looks at the global energy consumtion figures -  as opposed to capacity - the share of hydro, wind, geothermal, woodpellet, biofuel and biogas declines to just about 8%:

It is crucial, at this point, to differentiate between the installed capacity of renewables and the actual share of renewables satisfying the final energy consumption.

Substracting the use of traditional biomass, the figure for renewables in the modern sense, that is, wind, hydro, solar, geothermal, woodpellet, biofuel and biogas declines to 8.2% of the entire global energy consumption.

And of this 8,2% only a fraction comes from wind, solar and bioenergy. Their share might have grown somewhat during the last couple of years, but this figure from the Danish Risø National Laboratory for Sustainable Energy from 2009 still shows the reality behind all the hype: 

Only 1% of the world’s energy consumption comes from modern renewable energy technologies such as wind, solar and bioenergy. 

Vestas withdraws from UK wind turbine factory project

The loss making Danish wind turbine manufacturer Vestas has decided not the proceed with its "flagship" Sheerness project:

Vestas, a Danish company, said it would no longer proceed with its flagship Sheerness project amid concerns about political support for wind power in Britain.

The company’s withdrawal will be an embarrassment for the Government, which had cited the Sheerness factory as evidence of new green jobs being created in the UK. Ed Davey, the Energy Secretary, last week described wind power as a “strategic industry of national importance” on which Britain’s “clean energy future depends”.

The company last year promised to build the factory if the Government gave it “long term political certainty” and there was “stability in the market”. It would have been one of the largest offshore wind turbine factories of its kind in Europe. But Vestas yesterday said it had not received enough orders and hinted the industry had not had sufficient political support from the Government. “We are following the political situation very closely,” a Vestas spokesman added. “The right political decisions are needed in order to support the market for offshore wind energy in the UK.”

Ministers are preparing to cut subsidies for onshore wind farms by up to 25 per cent, and there are concerns that generous handouts for offshore wind farms could follow suit.

The decision to pull out of the factory is the second time Vestas has opted out of the UK market in recent years. It closed down a plant making onshore turbines on the Isle of Wight in 2009, with the loss of 400 jobs.

The decision of Vestas to withdraw from the Sheerness project clearly shows that wind power is not a viable source of energy without huge government subsidies. Vestas reported on May 2 a first-quarter net loss of 162 million euros ($205 million), almost double its deficit a year earlier and close to triple the estimated low in a Bloomberg survey of eight analysts. 

Dutch professors solve the euro crisis: "Get rid of those debts with sun and wind"

The eurozone is on the brink, with Spain now asking for bail-out money. But no reason to worry. A group of Dutch professors know how to solve the euro crisis

The countries most affected by the Eurocrisis could reduce their debts substantially with concessions for renewable energy. Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Ireland have excellent conditions for harvesting energy from the solar energy, wind power and geothermal energy sources. They could give their creditors concessions for large scale investment programs in renewable energy that offer enough long-term financial profit.

This 'renewable-energy-concessions-for-debt-reduction-plan' was introduced by a group of renowned economics and energy professors and proposed in the Dutch daily 'NRC Handelsblad' last Monday. A thirty percent debt reduction is possible if Ireland gives less than one percent, Portugal about one percent and Greece about two percent of its total surface into concession for renewable energy production. The authors emphasize that 'the energy projects don't have to exclusively be large-scale and on a few big pieces of land. They could capitalize on vast opportunities for decentralized energy locally as well'.

The involved countries would be able to pay off a substantial part of their debts to the creditors and at the same time they will also receive a positive stimulus for their economy and employment from the construction and maintenance of the projects. 'Especially the young generation in these countries who now face a tremendously high unemployment rate will enjoy a new perspective for a debt-free future with many opportunities for healthy growth. And Europe will have more renewable energy with which to contribute to a cleaner, healthier and safer environment for its citizens', according to the professors.

The professors have obviously not noticed that governments in a number of countries have been forced to cut  the subsidies to ineffecient, unreliable and expensive wind and solar energy projects:

This plan only has winners. The concessions allow the creditors to get their money back, which is quite uncertain in the current situation. The indebted countries will not only be paying off a substantial part of their debts, but they will also receive a positive stimulus for their economy and employment from the construction and maintenance of the projects. Especially the young generation in these countries who now face a tremendously high unemployment rate will enjoy a new perspective for a debt-free future with many opportunities for healthy growth. And Europe will have more renewable energy with which to contribute to a cleaner, healthier and safer environment for its citizens.

Source: this opinion article was published in NRC Handelsblad (The Netherlands) on June 4th by Prof. Dr. Klaas van Egmond (Professor in Geosciences – Utrecht University), Prof. Dr. Sylvester Eijffinger (Professor Financial Economy – Tilburg University), Prof. Dr. Herman Wijffels (Professor Sustainablity and Societal Change – Utrecht University), Prof.  Dr. Wim Sinke (Professor Sustainable Energysystems – Utrecht University) en Marco Witschge (initiator of this article and Director of the New Energy for The Netherlands Foundation)

Read the entire article here

One´s first reaction when reading the Dutch academics´ article is that this must be a joke. But regrettably these professors appear to be serious when they suggest that huge investments in solar and wind energy could solve the eurozone crisis. How detached from reality can you be as a Dutch academic?

"Green" energy hoax exposed

Marty Sieff exposes the the phantasies of "green" energy:

Understand this: the technology to store solar energy on a gigawatt (billion watts of power) scale does not yet exist. If you want it to, invent it. But to imagine that it does exist is to indulge in science fiction.
The energy output of a single medium-size coal mine in Kentucky, Robert Bryce writes, is greater than the entire solar and wind energy output of the United States.

This is not because some mythical evil oil and nuclear corporation executives have plotted to sabotage virtuous “clean” and renewable wind and solar power. It is because wind and solar power do not work. Wind power never will. Solar power may fifty or a hundred years from now. But right now, to bet on wind and solar power to run the US economy is ludicrous. It is science fiction.
And to dream that hydroelectric power, biomass, or thermal power can make the American people energy-independent is worse than science fiction; it is a fairy tale for babies.
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Wind energy is never going to be more than a marginal energy source. That is because, quite simply, it depends on the wind. Electrical generating stations need to have regular, sustainable sources of energy their machinery can constantly rely upon. Storage batteries and technology to store wind energy do not exist. Hopefully, one day soon they will. But we simply cannot count on it.
Also, as Robert Bryce, the managing editor of Energy Tribune, has pointed out, the most effective wind turbines require major quantities of the extremely rare minerals or rare earths lithium and lanthanides. “That means mining,” Bryce writes in his book Power Hungry. “And China controls nearly all of the world’s existing mines that produce lanthanides.”
In other words, when Thomas Friedman is telling us to embrace a wind energy future, he is not making us less energy-dependent on the Middle East, he is making us far more energy-dependent on China.


Read the entire article here

The question to ask is why so many "progressive" and leftist - and even a number of conservative - politicians continue to praise "green" energy, even if most of them understand, or at least should understand, that solar and wind power are no solution to our present - or foreseeable future - energy needs. We in Europe have reason to envy the United Sates, where the overwhelming majority of leading Republican politicians dare to oppose the politically correct enviro-fundamentalist agenda, dictated by the greenies and their supporters in the media.

Merkel´s energy transition: Energy prices now so high that low-income Germans not able to pay

"The primary reason for these costs can be seen on rooftops throughout Germany" 

The sad truth about German chancellor Angela Merkel´s failed energy transition policy is becoming more and more evident. Subsidised wind and solar power production has led to higher energy prices that low-income and unemployed Germans are not able to pay anymore. And further increases are in the pipeline ...

More than a year has passed since the Fukushima nuclear reactor disaster in Japan prompted Germany's lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, to vote to gradually phase out the country's nuclear power plants, replacing them wherever possible with renewable energy sources. Yet it is only now that a serious discussion is beginning over the costs of the nuclear phase-out.

Chancellor Angela Merkel made the transition to renewable energy a top priority after dismissing her environment minister, Norbert Röttgen, last month, but essential questions remain unanswered. Who will pay for this supposed "joint effort," in Merkel's words? What's the upper limit on costs? And when will voters' positive view of the nuclear phase-out give way to frustration over rising costs?

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Rising energy costs are especially embarrassing for German leaders because, until very recently, they claimed to have everything under control. Merkel more or less offered a price guarantee in a speech on the energy turnaround she gave in front of the Bundestag last year.
"We must continue to provide both businesses and individual citizens with affordable energy," Merkel said at the time. "The costs to consumers as a result of the EEG must not exceed their current level."
That's a promise the chancellor won't be able to keep. This fall, the Federal Network Agency is expected to announce rates that are 30 to 50 percent higher than current levels, putting consumers' contribution to renewable energy subsidies between 4.7 and 5.3 euro cents per kilowatt hour of energy, plus sales tax, up from the current level of 3.59 cents. Bareiss, the CDU's energy specialist, has even talked of "potentially more than six cents" per kilowatt hour, which would be an increase of nearly 70 percent.
The primary reason for these costs can be seen on rooftops throughout Germany. Energy consumers will pay €100 billion over the next 20 years to subsidize photovoltaics installed before the end of 2011. The first several months of this year added at least €5 billion to that amount.

Meanwhile, many low-income and unemployed Germans have reached the limits of what they're able to pay, as the example of Aminta Seck in Berlin shows. As a single mother, Seck receives €860 a month in government assistance. By law, €40 of that amount is intended primarily to cover energy costs.
In reality, though, the money isn't enough. Despite moving out of her old apartment and into a smaller one, Seck consistently comes up a few euros short each month, an amount she then has to pay as a lump sum at the end of the year. "I manage to come up with the money for the energy bill in the summer," she says, "but in the winter, when it's dark, it's just not possible."
Once the electricity has been shut off, it's difficult for consumers to climb out from under their debts, since in addition to settling their overdue bills, they have to pay a fee of up to €80 to have the power turned back on.

"My clients end up waiting at least a week, and in extreme cases even up to two months," says social worker Renate Stark, who works in Prenzlauer Berg at Caritas, a social services organization, and counsels people who have fallen behind on their energy bills.
Stark says she's already seen the effects of the transition to renewable energy sources. "In the past, at most one client per month came to me because of problems paying energy bills," she says. "Now it's at least 30."
This makes it all the more astonishing how casually politicians -- from all parties -- have disregarded the societal consequences of their project. While the government and opposition quarreled for months over a few euros' difference in Hartz IV payments, they essentially formed a grand coalition when it came to subsidizing solar panels.


Read the entire article here

No reason to celebrate Spanish wind power "record"

The European wind power lobby is celebrating the fact wind turbines in Spain at 1:37 in the early hours of 19 April accounted for 61% of the country´s energy demand:


Last month wind power in Sclpain reached new heights. This extract from the Spanish wind energy association’s (AEE) blog ‘somos eolicos’ highlights what happened…

However, this "achievement" is less than remarkable, when one realises that it happened on a particularly stormy day -  and in the middle of the night, when energy demand is extremely low:

 Iberian benchmark power prices bucked a pre-weekend downtrend in wholesale dealing on Friday as market-moving wind power retreated after setting new records during stormy weather the day before.

Spanish wind parks generated 16,636 megawatts on Thursday, according to national grid operator REE, easily surpassing a previous record of 14,752 MW set on Nov. 9, 2010.

Earlier in the day, wind power accounted for 61 percent of demand In Spain, which typically accounts for 85 percent of volume in the Iberian Electricity Market (Mibel).

Already on the following day the party was over:

By midday on Friday, wind power was down to 11,269 MW, which made costlier coal- and gas-burning plants work harder.


Read the entire article here

Wind power is not going to be a serious energy alternative anywhere. When the wind does not blow - and that happens usually e.g. when it is very cold outside - the turbines produce little or no energy. And in stormy weather they produce too much.  It´s just as simple as that. 

Georgia´s only (USAID funded) wind turbine produces energy for two families

The government of Georgia is to be congratulated for its realistic approach to wind energy:

“We can’t subsidy wind energy as we have a lot more important problems,” said Mariam Valishvili, First Deputy of the Minister of Energy. “The cost of building one megawatt wind firm is 1 million EUR, which is quite costly. This will increase the net price of energy and according to our calculations the net price of one KWh of energy is 16 cents. At the same time the areas with good wind energy potential are places where infrastructure isn’t developed at all. Constructing roads and transmission lines would take up almost half of the budget. For those reasons it isn’t worth starting and therefore we prefer to build hydro energy stations.”

No wonder that the Georgians are sceptical with regard to wind energy; The country´s only wind turbine, funded by USAID, is certainly not a huge success: 

“There is currently only one wind turbine in the village Skra. The project was funded by USAID. The prime cost of the turbine is about 25,000 USD. It produces only 22,000 KWh energy per year, which is enough for two families,” Valishvili said.

The U.S. wind power industry´s scare campaign will not succeed

Unreliable, costly and ineffective

The American wind power lobby is desperately continuing its scare campaign:

“The choice is clear: with policy certainty, we’ll grow to 100,000 jobs in just a few years,” AWEA CEO Denise Bode said in a statement. “Without it, 37,000 jobs will disappear, particularly in U.S. wind manufacturing. It’s up to Congress to act now and extend the PTC.”

Fortunately the scare tactics will not succeed in the Senate, where most Republican senators indeed know that the choice is clear: The "37,000 jobs" that "will disappear" are no real jobs, if they are dependent on tax credits. The senators also know that wind turbines are unreliable, costly and ineffective, compared with traditional ways of generating power. 

efforts by wind power proponents to extend the credit beyond its Dec. 31 expiration have stalled in the Senate, where the requirement of 60 votes to pass legislation has proved insurmountable. The credit is worth 2.2 cents for every kilowatt-hour of power produced.

As everywhere else, the wind power industry in the U.S. is in for rough times, when subsidies and tax credits vanish. On the positive side; there is more than enough of good and dependable energy for future needs in the U.S. thanks to the shale gas and oil revolution.