Renewable Energy Targets Force Consumers to Use Inefficient, Unreliable, Overpriced Products!

September 1, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

The crazy world of Renewable Energy Targets

Nothing makes sense about Renewable Energy Targets, except at a “Bumper-Sticker” level. Today the AFR front page suggests* the federal government is shifting to remove the scheme (by closing it to new entrants) rather than just scaling it back. It can’t come a day too soon. Right now, the Greens who care about CO2 emissions should be cheering too. The scheme was designed to promote an industry, not to cut CO2.

UPDATE: Mathias Cormann later says “that the government’s position was to “keep the renewable energy target in place” SMH. Mixed messages indeed.

We’ve been sold the idea that if we subsidize “renewable” energy (which produces less CO2) we’d get a world with lower CO2 emissions. But it ain’t so. The fake “free” market in renewables does not remotely achieve what it was advertised to do — the perverse incentives make the RET good for increasing “renewables” but bad for reducing CO2, and, worse, the more wind power you have, the less CO2 you save. Coal fired electricity is so cheap that doing anything other than making it more efficient is a wildly expensive and inefficient way to reduce CO2. But the Greens hate coal more than they want to reduce carbon dioxide. The dilemma!

The RET scheme in Australian pays a subsidy to wind farms and solar installations. Below, Tom Quirk shows that this is effectively a carbon tax (but a lousy one), and it shifts supply — perversely taxing brown coal at $27/ton, black coal at $40/ton and gas at up to $100/ton. Because it’s applied to renewables rather than CO2 directly, it’s effectively a higher tax rate for the non-renewable but lower CO2 emitters.

Calculating the true cost of electricity is fiendishly difficult. “Levelized costs” is the simple idea that we can add up the entire lifecycle cost of each energy type, but it’s almost impossible to calculate meaningful numbers. Because wind power is fickle, yet electricity demand is most definitely not, the real cost of wind power is not just the construction, maintenance and final disposal, but also the cost of having a gas back-up or expensive battery (give-us-your-gold) storage. It’s just inefficient every which way. Coal and nuclear stations are cheaper when run constantly rather than in a stop-start fashion (just like your car is). So the cost of renewables also includes the cost of shifting these “base load” suppliers from efficient to inefficient use — and in the case of coal it means producing more CO2 for the same megawatts. South Australia is the most renewable-dependent state in mainland Australia, and it’s a basketcase (look at the cost stack below). Real costs only come with modeling, and we all know how difficult that is.

If the aim is really the research and development of renewables (and not “low CO2″) then I’ve long said that we should pay for the research and development directly, not pay companies to put up inefficient and fairly useless versions in the hope that companies might earn enough to pay for the research out of the profits. Tom Quirk points out that it’s all frightfully perverse again, because most innovations come from industry, not government funded research, but in Australia we hardly have any industry making parts used in power generation — we don’t have the teams of electrical engineers working on the problem anymore. I suppose the theory is that Chinese companies will profit from solar panels and do the R&D for us (keeping “our” patents too)? It would be cheaper just to gift them the money direct wouldn’t it — rather than pay an industry to produce and install a product that no one would buy, which doesn’t work, and hope that the “profits” translate into discoveries that will produce royalties and jobs for people overseas. I’m sure Chinese workers and entrepreneurs will be grateful. Yay.

Meanwhile, Green fans have suddenly discovered the idea of sovereign risk (where were they while the Rudd-Gillard team blitzed Australia’s reputation for stable, predictable policy?). According to the AFR, the government is scornful (and rightly so):

The government source said the market was oversupplied with energy and there was no longer any cause for a mandated use of any specific type of power. The source said while there would be investment losses if the RET was abolished, or even scaled back, investors “would have to have been blind to know this wasn’t coming’’.

On Catalaxy files, Judith Sloan mocks the Fin for pushing a press release from a rent-seeking firm, and guesses the Abbott government will be too “gutless” to ditch this economic and environmental dog of a policy.

— Jo

Wind Turbines Kill More than Birds and Bats……They Kill Jobs, and Economies!

September 1, 2014September 1, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Subsidising Wind Power: A Sure-Fire Job Killer

September 1, 2014 by stopthesethings

As the wind industry gravy train shudders to a halt in Australia, the wind industry and its parasites are working overtime to garner support for retention of the completely unsustainable 41,000 GWh mandatory Renewable Energy Target.

One of the “pitches” being made is that winding back the RET will costs tens of thousands of jobs. Never mind that the wind industry has generated only a handful of permanent jobs in Australia; that the bulk of the jobs created were in fleeting construction work; and that new wind farm construction has more or less ground to a halt: “investment” in the construction of wind farms went from $2.69 billion in 2013 to a piddling $40 million this year (see this article).

When the “wind industry creates jobs” mantra is being chanted, what the Clean Energy Council doesn’t say is that every single job it’s “created” depends entirely on the mandatory RET and the Renewable Energy Certificates issued to wind power outfits under it.

The REC operates as a Federal Tax on all Australian power consumers – that is paid as a direct subsidy to wind power generators. The REC Tax/Subsidy has already cost power consumers over $8 billion and – if the current RET remains – will add a further $50 billion to power bills over the next 17 years (see our post here).

A subsidy paid to “create” a job in one part of an economy, means that a job (or jobs) will be lost elsewhere. A study by UK Versa Economics found that for every job created in the wind industry 3.7 jobs are lost elsewhere in the UK economy (see our post here).

One Australian study has forecast that the current mandatory RET will kill over 6,000 jobs (see our post here).

The idea of wind industry job “creation” is like robbing Peter to pay Paul, except that the thief has to filch $4 from Peter to end up handing $1 to Paul.

The Germans have worked out that their dream of “creating” thousands of sustainable “green” jobs was just that: a dream. The hundreds of €billions spent subsidising wind and solar have killed the German’s international competiveness, with major companies heading to the USA – where power costs are a third of Germany’s (see our post here). And, as renewables subsidies are inevitably wound back, the jobs they “created” are disappearing fast (see our post here).

The renewables subsidy story in Spain is no different. The Spaniards have thrown 100s of billions of euros in subsidies at solar and wind power, and have achieved nothing but economic punishment in return. The much touted promise of thousands of so-called “green” jobs never materialized. No surprises there. Instead, the insane cost of subsidising wind and solar power has killed productive industries, with the general unemployment rate rocketing from 8% to 26% – youth unemployment is nearer to 50% in many regions (see our post here). For an update on the Spanish renewables disaster see the study produced by the Institute for Energy Research available here.

A study undertaken by Gabriel Calzada Álvarez (PhD) of the University of Rey Juan Carlos back in 2009 – “Study of the effects on employment of public aid to renewable energy sources” (available here) summed up the adverse employment impacts of the Spanish renewables disaster as follows:

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: LESSONS FROM THE SPANISH RENEWABLES BUBBLE

Europe’s current policy and strategy for supporting the so-called “green jobs” or renewable energy dates back to 1997, and has become one of the principal justifications for U.S. “green jobs” proposals. Yet an examination of Europe’s experience reveals these policies to be terribly economically counterproductive. This study is important for several reasons. First is that the Spanish experience is considered a leading example to be followed by many policy advocates and politicians.

This study marks the very first time a critical analysis of the actual performance and impact has been made. Most important, it demonstrates that the Spanish/EU-style “green jobs” agenda now being promoted in the U.S. in fact destroys jobs, detailing this in terms of jobs destroyed per job created and the net destruction per installed MW. The study’s results demonstrate how such “green jobs” policy clearly hinders Spain’s way out of the current economic crisis, even while U.S. politicians insist that rushing into such a scheme will ease their own emergence from the turmoil.

The following are key points from the study:

1. As President Obama correctly remarked, Spain provides a reference for the establishment of government aid to renewable energy. No other country has given such broad support to the construction and production of electricity through renewable sources. The arguments for Spain’s and Europe’s “green jobs” schemes are the same arguments now made in the U.S., principally that massive public support would produce large numbers of green jobs. The question that this paper answers is “at what price?”

2. Optimistically treating European Commission partially funded data, we find that for every renewable energy job that the State manages to finance, Spain’s experience cited by President Obama as a model reveals with high confidence, by two different methods, that the U.S. should expect a loss of at least 2.2 jobs on average, or about 9 jobs lost for every 4 created, to which we have to add those jobs that non-subsidized investments with the same resources would have created.

3. Therefore, while it is not possible to directly translate Spain’s experience with exactitude to claim that the U.S. would lose at least 6.6 million to 11 million jobs, as a direct consequence were it to actually create 3 to 5 million “green jobs” as promised (in addition to the jobs lost due to the opportunity cost of private capital employed in renewable energy), the study clearly reveals the tendency that the U.S. should expect such an outcome.

4. At minimum, therefore, the study’s evaluation of the Spanish model cited as one for the U.S. to replicate in quick pursuit of “green jobs” serves a note of caution, that the reality is far from what has typically been presented, and that such schemes also offer considerable employment consequences and implications for emerging from the economic crisis.

5. Despite its hyper-aggressive (expensive and extensive) “green jobs” policies it appears that Spain likely has created a surprisingly low number of jobs, two-thirds of which came in construction, fabrication and installation, one quarter in administrative positions, marketing and projects engineering, and just one out of ten jobs has been created at the more permanent level of actual operation and maintenance of the renewable sources of electricity.

6. This came at great financial cost as well as cost in terms of jobs destroyed elsewhere in the economy.

7. The study calculates that since 2000 Spain spent €571,138 to create each “green job”, including subsidies of more than €1 million per wind industry job.

8. The study calculates that the programs creating those jobs also resulted in the destruction of nearly 110,500 jobs elsewhere in the economy, or 2.2 jobs destroyed for every “green job” created.

9. Principally, the high cost of electricity affects costs of production and employment levels in metallurgy, non-metallic mining and food processing, beverage and tobacco industries.

10. Each “green” megawatt installed destroys 5.28 jobs on average elsewhere in the economy: 8.99 by photovoltaics, 4.27 by wind energy, 5.05 by mini-hydro.

11. These costs do not appear to be unique to Spain’s approach but instead are largely inherent in schemes to promote renewable energy sources.

…
Gabriel Calzada Álvarez (PhD)
University of Rey Juan Carlos

Well, that couldn’t be much clearer.

In Spain, just as here, the great bulk of employment in the wind industry involves fleeting construction work (once the turbines are up, there’s nought to do) – as noted in point 5 – of the jobs created:

“two-thirds of which came in construction, fabrication and installation, one quarter in administrative positions, marketing and projects engineering, and just one out of ten jobs has been created at the more permanent level of actual operation and maintenance”.

That the Spaniards had to stump up “subsidies of more than €1 million” to create each wind industry job; that each wind industry job thus created, killed off 2.2 jobs elsewhere in the economy; and that each MW of wind power capacity installed destroyed 4.27 jobs – is nothing short of an economic disaster.

Faced with an unemployment calamity, the Spanish government has moved to dramatically slash the subsidies to renewables: tearing up wind farm contracts; retrospectively stopping subsidies for wind farms built before 2005; reducing the insanely high rates paid for wind power (previously guaranteed for 20 years) – capping the (subsidised) profits wind power outfits can make at 7.4%, above which the outfit must sell at the (unsubsidised) market rate (see our post here).

Given the results of Spain’s disastrous wind power experiment, the Australian wind industry’s “fan-tastic” claims about an employment Eldorado at the end of the RET rainbow are little more than fool’s gold.

The Wind Turbine Scam is Destroying Our Economies, as Well as Our Communities!

August 31, 2014 / 1957chev / 3 Comments

Professor Ross McKitrick: Wind turbines don’t run on wind, they run on subsidies.

August 31, 2014 by stopthesethings

As STT followers are acutely aware, wind power is an economic and environmental fraud. Because wind power can only ever be delivered at crazy, random intervals – and, therefore, never “on-demand” – it will never be a substitute for those generation sources which are – ie hydro, nuclear, gas and coal (see our posts here and here and here and hereand here and here and here and here).

Were it not for government mandates – backed by a constant and colossal stream of subsidies (see our post here) – wind power generators would never dispatch a single spark to the grid, as they would never find a customer that would accept power delivered 30% of the time (at best) on terms where the vendor can never tell customers just when that power might be delivered – if at all (see our post here).

Ultimately, it’ll be the inherently flawed economics of wind power that will bring the greatest rort of all time to an end. The policies that created the wind industry are simply unsustainable and, inevitably, will either fail or be scrapped.

The Canadians are reeling under the ludicrous wind power policies of a hard-green-left Liberal government, clearly intent on committing economic suicide. Power prices – driven by exorbitant guaranteed rates to wind power outfits – have rocketed – tripling in less than a decade, driving energy intensive businesses – like manufacturing – out of business or offshore – stifling business investment – killing off or threatening thousands of sustainable (unsubsidised) jobs across Canada and otherwise creating economic chaos (see our post here).

The scale and scope of Canada’s wind power disaster hasn’t been lost on top energy market economists, like Ontario’s Professor Ross McKitrickfrom the University of Guelph.

Ross was interviewed for the brilliant Sun News documentary ‘Down Wind’ by presenter, Rebecca Thompson, which has been extracted in the video below. The transcript appears below.

****

Downwind – Ross McKitrick – Uni of Guelph

Rebecca Thompson: First we turn to Professor Ross McKitrick, an economist. He recently published a very scathing review of how economically unsound the Ontario Liberal government’s Green Energy Act is.

Professor Ross McKitrick: Well the important thing to understand about wind turbines is that they don’t run on wind, they run on subsidies.

Rebecca Thompson: We went to see McKitrick at the University of Guelph.

Professor Ross McKitrick: All the arguments that they’ve put forward for the Green Energy Act they really turned out to be phoney once we looked at them closely. They said that it would improve the economy, reduce air pollution emissions and it would replace coal fired power. And the problem is with the first one, it is not going to improve the economy because of what you are doing is replacing power that costs 3 to 5 cents per kilowatt hour to generate, and you’re replacing it with power that costs at least 13 1/2 cents per kilowatt hour to generate. So you’re raising the cost of doing business, it will drive down the rate of return in manufacturing and mining and that has to translate into job losses and reduced investment and shrinking the economy.

Rebecca Thompson: So you’ve pointed out that wind energy in fact, isn’t in the public interest in the short term but will it be in the long term?

Professor Ross McKitrick: Nobody was building wind turbines in Ontario until the government started throwing money at it. It is not a profitable source of electricity, it’s not cost-effective. Wind turbines can’t compete on the wholesale market without a lot of government support.

Rebecca Thompson: The system used to fund wind energy in many places around the world is called a Feed-In-Tariff (FIT).

Professor Ross McKitrick: And that means if you build a bank of wind turbines somewhere, and you get the contract that everyone is looking for you get a guarantee of 20 years being paid 13 1/2 cents per kilowatt-hour for the electricity that’s generated while the wholesale rate in Ontario is typically between 2 – 4 cents per kilowatt hour.

Rebecca Thompson: The Ontario government piggybacked off what is a European idea of a feed in tariff policy where the prices are locked in for 20 year contracts. And here’s another head scratcher …

Professor Ross McKitrick: The other provision of the contracts is that the system has to buy the power from you whenever you produce it. So the standard power plants, nuclear plants and hydro plants and so forth – there is no guarantee for them to buy their power, they have to compete on a wholesale market they have to price their product, in this case electricity, so that the system operator will buy it. With wind turbines, if the blades are running, the system operator has to buy it. Now they have adjusted that slightly in the last year because of this problem of the system operator being forced to buy tons and tons of power when it doesn’t need it, at 13 1/2 cents per kilowatt hour and sell it on the export market at one or two cents per kilowatt-hour – it was costing hundreds of millions of dollars a year for the system operator to do that. So the province now allows the system operator to reject some of the power that the wind turbines produce and instead the province will pay the wind turbine owners a benefit for what they call ‘deemed production’. So it’s really just transferred that same costs on to the taxpayer now.

Rebecca Thompson: The bottom line is pretty good for the wind energy sector.

Professor Ross McKitrick: They get a 20 year contract to sell wind power at far above market rates and it doesn’t matter that they are generating power at times when the province absolutely doesn’t need it, and we can’t use it, and we just have to try to find some neighbouring jurisdiction to buy it from us. We used to have a few large power plants in Ontario and we had our grid that was optimised to source electricity from a few large central locations. We’re now shutting down the large central locations and replacing them with this proliferation of tiny little unreliable wind farms and you have to build a whole new grid to accommodate that. So that’s again an extra cost to get something that we already had.

Rebecca Thompson: What’s more is that the Green Energy Act hasn’t even come close to creating the number of jobs the Liberals claimed it would.

Professor Ross McKitrick: It turned out that the province had claimed that there were going to be 50,000 new jobs created from the Green Energy Act. When the Auditor General asks them to back that up because it doesn’t really make sense that this would create any jobs – what they admitted was they were really talking about were temporary construction jobs – as you put up wind turbines you need some workers in to do that. But then once the wind turbines are built, then those jobs disappear and there are no ongoing jobs. In economics, it’s an old fallacy, what’s called the broken window fallacy. If you go around breaking shopkeeper’s windows, since they have to hire repair people to fix the windows then you’ve somehow improved the economy. But, you haven’t. All you have done is increase the cost of having what you had before – which was windows in stores.

Rebecca Thompson: If the new shift to green power is so inefficient why hasn’t anyone working in the system spoken out?

Professor Ross McKitrick: There are a couple of reasons. The power workers union has spent money on advertisements. They did try to fight against the closing of Lambton and Nanticoke – they understood that this was a bad deal for the workers in the province. But they did want they could. But it’s hard to be up against a government that is pushing so much propaganda on coal. There were people certainly in the power generating sector that understood that the government’s numbers weren’t correct and didn’t add up. But, they were effectively muzzled.

Rebecca Thompson: McKitrick speaks to people all the time about the changes in the system.

Professor Ross McKitrick: I do find people working in the power sector, they know that this is a crazy system. These wind farms are displacing hydro electricity which is just a waste on every level because we have the hydroelectric facilities, they don’t generate any air pollution emissions. They give us reliable, predictable baseload power. And now we run wind turbines and let those hydro-facilities sit idle. So people who work in the sector, they can see what’s going on and they know that this is a waste. But, for understandable reasons they’re not about to make a big noise about it because they could lose their jobs if they do.

Rebecca Thompson: Whether any government would actually be able to get out of existing contracts is debatable. Ross McKitrick says it’s possible.

Professor Ross McKitrick: One option might be to buy out some of the wind turbine companies and take those wind turbines off the grid, or only use their power when they’re competitive. In Europe, what governments have started to do though is put on special new taxes on renewable sources, solar and wind, to try and recover some of these costs. Alternatively, the government may look to try and tear up the contracts and accept the legal liability that goes with it, but it’s not going to be easy.
Sun News: Down Wind

Down Wind, which runs for 96 minutes, can be purchased as a file and downloaded or as a DVD for those in the US and Canada (here’s the link). For those outside the US and Canada the file can be purchased and downloaded (using this link). If you’re in there fighting the great wind power fraud, Down Wind is essential viewing.

For a detailed synopsis of Down Wind – see our post here.

Wind Pushers are Allowed to Slaughter Birds, With Impunity!

August 29, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Bye Bye Birdie
Does the government give green-energy firms a free pass on bird deaths?

By Jillian Kay Melchior

Death from Above: A wind-power tower (Dreamstime)

Two former U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service investigators tell National Review Online that the federal government acted with a bias, giving renewable-energy companies a pass on unlawful bird deaths while rigorously prosecuting traditional energy companies for the same infractions.

“If birds were electrocuted or in oil pits, we prosecuted those companies,” says Tim Eicher, a special agent who handled cases involving migratory birds, eagles, and endangered species until his retirement three years ago. But the Fish and Wildlife Service “has drunk the Kool-Aid on global warming,” Eicher tells NRO. When it comes to wind- and solar-energy companies, “the end, to them, justifies the means: They’re saving the planet, and if eagles die in the process, so be it.”

Dominic Domenici, a former Fish and Wildlife Service investigator who worked with Eicher in Wyoming, says the bias is obvious because, when unlawful bird deaths occur, the federal government “prosecutes everything except for wind and solar — and they give [those renewable companies] permits” for bird-killing. That bias, Domenici says, is “top-down” within the Fish and Wildlife Service.

“They have chosen to do everything they can to make wind energy look perfect,” Domenici says. He adds: “I think they just want an alternative energy so badly that they’re prepared to turn a blind eye on all the bad parts of it. And it may be the best thing in the world, and it may be the answer — but they still need to enforce the laws to put the incentives [against bird-killing in place].”

Potential bias in the enforcement and prosecution of bird deaths has piqued the interest of the House Natural Resources Committee, which in March subpoenaed the case files for all Obama-administration investigations conducted under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act or the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act.

But to date, the Fish and Wildlife Service has not provided all of the records, says the committee’s press rep, Michael Tadeo.

“Our subpoena has not been fully complied with,” Tadeo says. “The documents we have received have been heavily redacted, and the administration continues to stonewall us on this issue.”

Republican Kevin Cramer, a North Dakota congressman who’s on the Natural Resources Committee, tells NRO: “The Obama administration is clearly not just biased but hard-biased against fossil-fuel development, and it is willing to selectively enforce federal laws and rules to favor what they consider to be clean energy. It’s certainly not played out any clearer than it is with [the administration’s] enforcement of things like the Migratory Bird Act. . . . It’s a clear-cut bias. I think it’s hypocrisy at its worst. On one hand, they want to be environmentally clean. On the other, they don’t care how many birds they kill doing it.”

But Mike Daulton, vice president of government relations at the Audubon Society, says he’s skeptical of claims or suspicions of bias on the part of the Fish and Wildlife Service.

“I think it’s a stretch to say that the law is being applied more to oil or gas, or that it’s being disproportionately applied,” Daulton tells NRO. “This is looking for an excuse to attack the administration. In the past, [the Migratory Bird Treaty Act] has been applied in very narrow circumstances. The application of the law to wind could be broader. . . . I’ve heard that there are cases in the pipeline at the Department of Interior and Justice.”

But Bob Johns, director of public relations at the American Bird Conservancy, says, “The numbers don’t lie — and those numbers say that the wind- and the solar-energy industries have not been held to the same standards that other industries have.”

Johns noted that the Altamont Energy wind farms in California, for example, kill between 70 and 80 golden eagles a year — and have never been prosecuted. He adds that he’s not aware of any prosecutions against solar companies.

Testifying to the House committee in March, the director of the Fish and Wildlife Service said the agency was investigating 17 incidents at wind farms, along with 21 at oil and gas sites. It’s unclear whether any investigations have occurred at solar-energy sites, even as reports emerge that California’s Ivanpah solar plant alone may be responsible for up to 28,000 bird deaths annually.

SSE and Centrica have Cancelled Economically Unfeasible Big Wind Projects! Check this out!

August 28, 2014 / 1957chev / 1 Comment

Funding boost will help fuel SSE joint venture

Scott Wright

Group business correspondent

Thursday 28 August 2014

A JOINT venture between energy giant SSE and Intelligent Energy which is developing technology to change the way domestic energy is generated and consumed has received £800,000 in fresh funding.

Bellshill-based IE-CHP will use the latest funds from its backers, which also include the Scottish Investment Bank, to develop its mini power station or smart power unit prototype.

It says the fuel cell technology, which works alongside existing heating systems, has the potential to reduce the fuel bills of millions of home owners.

The technology takes mains gas and converts it into hydrogen, which is then fed into a hydrogen fuel cell stack. The cell then acts like a mini power station by converting the hydrogen into low-cost electrical power and heat, which can be used in the home.

IE-CHP technical director Mark Bugler, who hopes to start rolling out the technology in 18 months, said the latest funds will allow it “to finish some of the development work we are doing”.

He noted: “We’ve got some political lobbying to do to get a fuller understanding really of the potential for fuel cells. Certainly on the technology side, it [the funding] helps.

“This is really the start of the journey to get the whole of the UK excited about the potential for what ultimately is the best form of using a gas in a chemical process, rather than burning it.”

The funding boost, which takes the total raised by IE-CHP to £5 million, coincides with research suggesting the installation of millions of mini power stations could transform the UK power market.

A report by Ecuity, the energy analyst, claimed the roll out of five million fuel cell smart power units across the UK by 2030 would generate annual energy bill savings of £1000 for five million consumers.

It is understood smart units are significantly more efficient than power stations, where energy is lost through production and transmission. More than 80,000 smart power units have been installed in Japan, which plans to roll out 5.3 million by 2030 as it replaces nuclear power with fuel cells.

Mr Bugler said: “We see this as part of the UK energy mix for the future. At the moment you have got centralised power stations, which generate electricity at less than 50 per cent efficiency.

“By decentralising power and putting power stations at the homes, rather than centrally in the country, you avoid all the emissions plus all the losses and extra cost of upgrading and maintaining the network.”

He added: “SSE and Centrica have announced cancellation of their big wind farms because the economics don’t stack up. There will have to be some other low carbon technology which replaces that. We think fuel cells is probably that technology.”

Industrial Wind Projects are Falling Out of Favour, and for Good Reasons!

August 28, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

As the tide turns on wind farms in Northumberland, we look at what is causing the wind of change

A growing number of wind farm proposals in Northumberland are being refused amid an apparent turning of the tide…

Wingates in Northumberland where a wind farm community fund has not been set up as agreed with wind farm developers.

You don’t have to go back too far to a time when you couldn’t open The Journal without reading about residents Northumberland begging for mercy from an onslaught of wind turbines.

People in the county adopted a siege mentality as figures time and again proved that they were being made to live with more wind farms than elsewhere in the country. Planning application after planning application seemed to be nodded through despite their desperate pleas.

Indeed new figures from Northumberland County Council show that the authority has approved 80 out of 98 wind related proposals in the last three years.

In 2012, Dr James Lunn, who was involved in a fight to halt plans for generators near his Fenrother home, not far from Morpeth, said: “We need both a national and Northumberland policy to protect settlements, because we can’t rely on the county council planning department to protect us.

“They seem to believe there is no upper limit for the number of wind farms that can be considered.”

Back to the present and the wind of change seems to have blown through the whole vexed issue on onshore wind.

Only recently proposals for wind turbines at Dr Lunn’s village, at a site close to the Duddo Stone Circle and Flodden battlefield have been rejected or approvals quashed.

And the brakes are being applied by the Government, namely the Department of Communities and Local Government.

Another scheme at Rayburn Lake has also been recommended for refusal by council officers although a decision has been deferred.

But what is behind the turning tide? Is it a recognition that Northumberland has had enough as residents would argue?

Or is it as a growing number of commentators in the industry believe, politics at play?

Many believe that the DCLG and its boss Eric Pickles is acting out of a desire to appease rank and file Conservative voters, who rightly or wrongly are associated with an anti-wind stance.

The minister created the new planning guidance, so sought by Dr Lunn, which decreed that the importance of renewable energy should not automatically override the views of communities.

Mr Pickles himself issued the final say on appeal decisions – including Fenrother and the Flodden scheme – in order to ensure that guidance was being followed.

Those behind the wind farms are becoming used to disappointment.

Jennifer Webber, spokesman for RenewableUK, the self proclaimed voice of wind energy, said: “The vast majority of people in the North East support more onshore wind with polling last year finding that three quarters of people in the North East would support more wind farms in the area they live.

“Polling consistently shows that people are in favour of onshore wind, so it’s unfortunate that the secretary of state for communities and local government is trying to block schemes, based on a misguided belief that such an approach will be popular with voters.

“Each megawatt of installed onshore wind brings in £100,000 of income to the local community over its lifetime, and it’s a shame communities are missing out on this.”

The organisation’s claims about the popularity of wind will no doubt surprise its opponents in the wide open spaces of the North East.

The claim that Mr Pickles is seeking to appease his voters is disputed by one Conservative in Northumberland.

Longhorsley Councillor Glen Sanderson at Wingates in Northumberland where a wind farm community fund has not been set up as agreed — Longhorsley Councillor Glen Sanderson at Wingates in Northumberland

County councillor for Longhorsley Glen Sanderson, who was a vocal opponent of the Fenrother scheme, said: “I think that would be far from the truth, it is not just Conservative voters who feel strongly about the impact that wind farms have on our very sensitive parts of the country.

“It is not just Conservatives, it is visitors to our county and people who enjoy the beauty around them.

“It is not a political point at all.”

The councillor believes, not unsurprisingly, that his minister, has accepted the argument often made in Northumberland that the perceived desecration of the countryside must stop.

“It is a question of getting to grips with reality and understanding we only have one beautiful countryside and that government has a duty of ensuring that natural beauty is preserved.

“The government have listened to the people, not just Conservative voters.”

Dr Lunn feels the government is partially motivated by the desire to “win votes.” Yet he also believes the wind of change is inspired by acknowledgement that turbines are not benefiting the environment or the economy.

“I think there is a current nail in the coffin for large scale onshore wind farms both at local level and at national level.

“Both for political reasons in winning votes but also for the sheer fact is it not helping the country’s economy.

“Wind power was sold on the fact it was sustainable for the environment but it does not provide sustainable communities if not everyone likes it.

“It does not provide a sustainable economy if not everyone can afford it.

“It is no longer a sustainable green form of energy. Regardless of which political party is in power they can not argue it is a sustainable way to take the country forward.”

Dr Lunn does not fear a revival in the wind industry under a different government.

“I am not particularly concerned, it is seen as a vote winning policy. These things take five years from start to finish, regardless of who wins the next election you have got to look five years into the future.”

The Labour party has indicated it would allow decisions on planning applications to be made at local level if elected, hitting out at the Conservatives for allowing so many decisions to be made by the government.

The party believes this “reverse localism” could come back to bite Northumberland in the fracking debate.

Councillor Scott Dickinson, the new County Council Business Chair for Northumberland, at County Hall, Morpeth

Scott Dickinson, a party county councillor in Northumberland and parliamentary candidate for Berwick, said: “I’m uncomfortable that a Conservative secretary of state is making decisions about what’s best for North Northumberland rather than local people.

“Northumberland Conservatives seem to be happy to allow ‘reverse localism’ but I’m worried that this is a precursor to the ‘fracking debate.’

“If a secretary of state is intervening to halt planning applications for wind farms then what happens when communities want to stop ‘fracking’ in their backyard when its government policy to support ‘fracking’?

“Will he intervene to overrule local concerns.”

Coun Sanderson however argued the government has shown it will listen to local people on wind and would similarly do so with fracking.

Villagers from Fenrother, near Morpeth, celebrate plans for a Wind Farm at the village being refused

“You just need to go back to a recent one in Fenrother where thousands of people were prepared to put their names against that proposal.

“If the same thing happened in Northumberland about fracking, I think the government would be forced to consider their position on that as well.

“I am absolutely convinced that localism has a part to play in all planning matters and I think the government has shown they have listened in their change of line on onshore wind farms.

“Otherwise they can not be a directly responsible government.”

In addition to the potential for fracking, Dr Lunn believes the loss of momentum could see an increase in applications for solar power, with a preliminary application for 160 acres at Bellingham already lodged.

Yet he believes wind will remain in the mix through small projects of one or two generators and domestic farm turbines, which he feels will became even more prevalent as doubts grow among landowners over large schemes.

It will be Interesting to see if Student’s Results Match up with those of the Wind Industry.

August 28, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Luther College studying wind turbine’s impact on local bats

Tuesday, August 26, 2014 8:07 AM

Luther students Mariah Crotty and Andrea Malek are working with Dawn Reding, Luther visiting assistant professor in biology, using several methods to survey bat populations and estimate bat mortality caused by the sweeping rotor blades. (Submitted photo)

Wind energy is becoming a prominent feature of both economic and visual landscapes across the United States. Wind turbines, like the one here in Decorah, are a sustainable energy resource, and help keep our air clean by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. But what effects do they have on the local wildlife, and how can any threats be minimized?

This summer, the Luther College Biology Department is investigating the Luther College wind turbine’s impact on bats. Dawn Reding, Luther visiting assistant professor in biology, and students Mariah Crotty and Andrea Malek are using several methods to survey bat populations and estimate bat mortality caused by the sweeping rotor blades.

Three acoustic monitoring sites have been set up around Decorah to learn more about species presence and abundance, and the researchers are conducting daily searches around the turbine to look for bat carcasses. Eight species have been detected in the area, and each detector has recorded from 50 to 600 bat calls per night this summer. Although a few carcasses have been found beneath the wind turbine, additional monitoring and analysis will be necessary to better estimate the turbine’s impact.

Bats are a very important part of the environment, and eat annoying insects, with some species eating 500 to 1,000 mosquitoes in a single hour.
With their work, the researchers aim to learn more about the bats in northeastern Iowa and provide information needed to lessen human impact on the area’s wildlife.

For more information on their research or to follow their results contact Professor Reding, redida01@luther.edu.

Spain’s Failed Green Energy Experiment….Another Case Study from Institute for Energy Research

August 27, 2014 / 1957chev / 4 Comments

Spain’s Green Energy Experiment

AUGUST 27, 2014

The Institute for Energy Research released today a case study on Spain’s failed green energy policies. This is the second entry in a series of case studies on Europe’s green energy disaster (click here to read IER’s case study on Germany).

For years, President Obama has pointed to Europe’s energy policies as an example that the United States should follow. However, those policies have been disastrous for countries like Spain, where electricity prices have skyrocketed, unemployment is over 25 percent, and youth unemployment is over 50 percent.

IER’s study found:

In 2000, Spain began a new program to subsidize renewable energy with the passage of its “Promotion Plan for Renewable Energies.”
Spain’s feed-in tariffs have created a “rate deficit” amounting to $41 billion (about $850 per person).
In 2011, Spain’s domestic electricity prices (including taxes) amounted to 29.46 U.S. ¢/kilowatt-hour (kWh), nearly 2.5 times more than U.S. prices.
Spain’s electricity prices increased by 92 percent from 2005 to 2011.
Rising energy costs hit low-income Spaniards the hardest–driving them into energy poverty
Despite myriad renewable subsidies and mandates, Spain’s CO2 emissions increased by 34.5% from 1994-2011.

Click here to read the full case study.

Click here to read IER’s previous study on Spain by Dr. Gabriel Calzada Alvarez.

The Good People of Maine have made Radio Commercials to Educate the Public about Wind Turbines!

August 27, 2014 / 1957chev / 1 Comment

Listen to Saving Maine’s first three radio commercials exposing wind power in Maine

Click right here and turn your speakers on. These spots are being aired as part of Saving Maine’s continuing advertising effort to counter the wind propaganda spewed by the wind industry and their sock puppets at Maine’s so called environmental groups who have sold out the people of Maine.

Click here and then click on each of the three :60 radio spots.

http://savingmaine.org/

1. “Goodbye Saddleback” — SAVING MAINE

1:01

2. “Poor Wind” — SAVING MAINE

1:01

3. “Power Exporter” — SAVING MAIN

Wind power sailed into Maine on a free pass and has survived thus far based on cheer leading from the Baldacci administration which in 2008 pushed through a law written by and for the wind industry. That law, which completely stacked the deck against ordinary Mainers, will be changed and advertising will speed up the process. For the first time, through the power of paid advertising, large numbers of Mainers are learning the other side of the wind story – paid for by their fellow Mainers.

These wind companies are on the ropes. It is time to put them away. So make sure we keep the pressure on by clicking the DONATE button at http://savingmaine.org/ Even a small amount will add up so go ahead and click that button and ask everyone you know to do the same. Please do this today.

The following is from a wind industry consultant and it speaks volumes about the importance of getting our message out:

During the webinar, Justin Rolfe-Redding, a doctoral student from the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University, discussed ways for wind-energy proponents to get their message out to the public.Rolfe-Redding said that polling data showed that “after reading arguments for and against wind, wind lost support.” He went on to say that concerns about wind energy’s cost and its effect on property values “crowded out climate change” among those surveyed.

The most astounding thing to come out of Rolfe-Redding’s mouth — and yes, I heard him say it myself — was this: “The things people are educated about are a real deficit for us.” After the briefings on the pros and cons of wind, said Rolfe-Redding, “enthusiasm decreased for wind. That’s a troubling finding.”

When Will All Governments Follow the Aussies lead? Not soon enough!

August 27, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Australian Wind Industry Doomed: Tony Abbott Signals the End of the Mandatory RET

August 27, 2014 by stopthesethings

STT followers have been delighted with news that Tony Abbott, Joe Hockey and Mathias Cormann have teamed up to axe the mandatory RET (see our post here).

In response to the PM’s mooted plan, the wind industry and its parasites have been reduced to making idle threats of “revenge” and bleating about “sovereign risk”. Despite a rear-guard effort by Environment Minister, Greg Hunt to salvage something of the mandatory RET, his boss has confirmed that his mission is to kill it outright. And that pretty much means the end of the wind industry as we’ve known and grown to despise it. Here’s the Australian Financial Review on the beginning of the end.

Coalition fails to budge on RET pruning
Australian Financial Review
Phillip Coorey
26 August 2014

Pleas by solar and wind companies to leave the Renewable Energy Target untouched have fallen on deaf ears with the government deciding to proceed with a phasing down of the scheme.

While a final position will not be announced until next month, The Australian Financial Review understands the intent is to cut the scheme harder than a compromise scenario that was being pursued by the Environment Minister, Greg Hunt.

The end result will be closer to the abolition scenario advocated by Prime Minister Tony Abbott which would end the scheme by closing it to new entrants and grandfathering existing large scale projects.

Seeking to overcome the cabinet split, Mr Hunt, Mr Abbott and Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane met on Sunday to discuss a policy position to be put to the bureaucracy for analysis and then to the cabinet for a final decision.

The government is being guided by the findings of the review into the RET conducted by businessman Dick Warburton, a person the industry has argued is ill-suited to the task because he is a climate-change sceptic.

The guiding principles of the final decision will be to balance investor risk with the impact of the RET on household and business power bills. Mr Abbott claims the RET has had a significant impact on power prices. The government’s own modelling shows while the RET has added $40 a year to average household power bill, prices will fall over the medium term as more renewable energy is produced.

The industry is ramping up its warnings that any dilution of the current scheme will not only jeopardise more than $11 billion in the renewable energy investment pipeline, but create a broader sovereign risk perception for Australia.

Close watch on outcome

Philip Green, the London-based partner of the Children’s Investment Master Fund (TCI), which has a 33 per cent stake in renewable energy company Infigen, said the issue was being watched closely. “Sovereign risk has already increased in Australia given the media coverage of the carbon debate and now the RET. Sovereign risk will increase more if the stories about cuts to the RET are confirmed,” he said in a statement.

“This comes at a cost to the nation through higher capital costs as it seeks future investment in infrastructure. The Australian RET had strong bi-partisan political support [including from the current prime minister]. It can take a long time to restore trust and in some cases this is only achieved with a change in leadership/policy/party.”

Under the RET, a policy which hitherto had bipartisan support, 20 per cent of Australian’s energy production by 2020 would come from renewable sources. Based on earlier predictions of power production in 2020, this 20 per cent target was calculated at an annual production of 41,000 gigawatt hours.

But the 2020 production total has been downgraded following the decline of the manufacturing sector, including automotive and aluminium.

Consequently, 20 per cent of the revised production target is 27,000 GWh. This is the “real 20 per cent” scenario for which Mr Hunt is advocating.

Under the push by Mr Abbott, renewable energy output would be frozen at current levels of about 16,000 GWh.

Any proposed change faces a near impossible passage through the Parliament with Labor and the Greens opposed to any alteration, while Clive Palmer says he will not allow any change unless Mr Abbott goes to the next election in 2016 and wins a mandate.
Australian Financial Review

STT thinks the constant reference to Dick Warburton as a “climate-change sceptic” is just churlish bitterness from the vanquished. From STT’s viewpoint, Dick did precisely what he was supposed to do: standing up for Australian power consumers and helping to bring an end to the most costly and pointless piece of policy ever devised.

And, yet again, the wind industry – and those with shirts to lose when it collapses – trot out the furhpy about “sovereign risk”. Not only is it utter bunkum (see our posts here and here and here and here), harping on about it won’t save the wind industry from the inevitable demolition of the mandatory RET.

The AFR talks about Australia risking “$11 billion in the renewable energy investment pipeline” as if that were some kind of loss to Australian power consumers, in an already over-supplied market. As we’ve previously pointed out, the threatened “investment” is hardly a “no-strings attached-gift”. The would be investors are after annual gross returns in the order of 20% on that figure – ie, a cool $2.2 billion, every year – which can only be recouped from power consumers through higher power bills – with a fat pile of RECs underwriting the “investment” (see our post here).

As a piece of friendly advice, we wouldn’t be betting the house on Clive Palmer blocking any changes to the RET in the Senate. Horse trading is the life-blood of politics; and a week can be a very long time for anyone engaged in the political caper. As you’d expect, STT hears that Tony Abbott is already doing business with the Senate’s cross-benchers, including the PUP in order to come up with a workable solution to the debacle that is the mandatory RET, which has utterly failed as a cost-effective CO2 abatement policy.

Clive Palmer wants an Emissions Trading Scheme (albeit with the price of credits set at zero). So the Coalition’s Direct Action policy is being reworked by top energy market economist, Danny Price in a manner that will not only resemble something like what Clive is after, but in a way that will slash the value of the subsidies to wind power outfits (as promised by the RET) by around 90%. One of the cross-benchers, Nick Xenophon – who works closely with Danny Price – is in on the mission to kill off the wind industry, by introducing some tweaks of his own to Coalition policy, aimed at achieving least-cost CO2 abatement (see our posts here andhere). Another cross-bencher, David Leyonhjelm penned a piece for The Australian today (we’ll cover it shortly) setting out his eagerness to kill the mandatory RET, which he sees as “just government mandated corporate welfare” that will cost power consumers $billions “for no measurable environmental benefit”. No, STT didn’t write David’s article.

But, in the result, whether or not changes to the mandatory RET occur during the life of this parliament is a matter of passing academic interest. The wind industry is doomed simply because – from here on – NO retailer in touch with their earthly senses will enter a long-term Power Purchase Agreement with a wind power outfit – which means that those desperados still hoping to build wind farms will never obtain the finance needed to do so. Moreover, the REC price is bound to head south over the coming weeks and months, placing outfits with current wind farm operations in mortal financial jeopardy.

One of those facing an early exit from the stage is our old favourite, Infigen. These boys have just announced an $8.9 million loss for 2013/14, which follows a $55 million loss in 2011/12 and an $80 million loss for 2012/13 (see our posts here and here). Those hefty losses were all racked up at a time when the mandatory RET was set in stone, such that the regulatory cards were all firmly stacked in Infigen’s favour.

With the mandatory RET set for the chop, Infigen is preparing to emulate its predecessor (Babcock & Brown) with another spectacular financial collapse. Here’s the Australian Financial Review setting the scene for Babcock & Brown Mk II.

Infigen at risk if RET wound up
Australian Financial Review
Angela Macdonald-Smith
26 August 2014

Wind power producer Infigen Energy has warned it could fall into breach of its debt covenants within three months should the 2020 Renewable Energy Target be wound back with no compensation for affected investors.

Managing director Miles George said either of the two outcomes apparently being favoured by the government for the overhaul of the RET would be “disastrous” for both the industry and Infigen.

He said significant write-downs would follow, with the loss of value for Infigen more than its current market cap of about $185 million.

The government is thought to be considering two potential outcomes for its RET review, one involving reining the 2020 target back to represent a “real” 20 per cent of electricity use, rather than the 26 per cent to 28 per cent it is currently expected to represent.

The other involves closing off the scheme to new entrants, while honouring existing contracts only.

“Either of these scenarios is disastrous for our industry,” Mr George said, after Infigen posted an $8.9 million full-year net loss, affected by the regulatory uncertainty. “They are both death for the renewable energy industry and, to be frank, they are death for Infigen.”

He said if no compensation was provided for investors, the resulting weakness in the price of large-scale renewable energy certificates would cut cash flow for debt servicing. As a result, Infigen would be at risk of breaching its covenants within three months.
Australian Financial Review

This couldn’t be happening to a nicer bunch of lads.

	How The Climate Grif… on There is NO Global Warming…
	Bob Bateman on Government-Induced Climaphobia…
	William Hooi on Germany’s Renewable Energy Dis…
	Jessica on Issues for Landowners to Consi…
	Raymond on Poorest Families Left Powerles…

"Mothers Against Wind Turbines™" Phoenix Rising…

Children Deserve Protection!

wind and solar