wind and solar

Novelty Energy at Best…Wind & Solar are NOT Making the Cut!

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Germany’s $412 Billion Green Energy Plan Meets Harsh Reality

Germany has been rapidly increasing its green energy production but hasn’t gotten the results it planned.

The Switzerland-based FAA Financial Advisory AG looked at the consequences of Germany’s “Energiewende” and found that the $412 billion effort did “not provide net savings to consumers, but rather a net increase in costs to consumers and other stakeholders.”

“Over the last decade, well-intentioned policymakers in Germany and other European countries have created renewable energy policies that have slowly revealed themselves to be unsustainable, resulting in profound, unintended consequences for all industry stakeholders,” reads FAA’s report which was prepared for the Edison Electric Institute and other European groups.

“Accordingly, the United States and other countries should carefully assess the lessons learned in Germany, with respect to generous subsidy programs and relatively rapid, large-scale deployment and integration of renewable energy into the power system,” FAA warns.

Germany was once touted by President Obama as a shining example of green energy policy. The country aims to get 80 percent of its power from green energy by 2050 in an effort to drastically cut its carbon dioxide emissions, which scientists say cause global warming.

A mix of subsidies and production quotas have allowed the country to rapidly expand its green energy production, growing from 4.3 percent of total energy consumption in 1990 to a whopping 23.5 percent in 2012 (this includes hydroelectric power). But the cost has been astronomical to consumers.

Consumer energy bills have been spiking for years to the point where electricity in the country has been called a “luxury good” by major media outlets. German households have seen electricity prices more than double in the last decade “increasing from €0.14/kilowatt hour (kWh) ($0.18) in 2000 to more than €0.29/kWh ($0.38) in 2013,” according to FAA. This is compared to U.S. household prices, which have been stable at $0.13 per kilowatt hour over the last decade.

FAA also reports that German consumers will pay $31.1 billion for energy subsidies this year alone. Furthermore, in the past five years Germany has suffered $67.6 billion in net export losses from high energy costs — a huge blow to an export-led economy like Germany.

“While these policies have created an impressive roll-out of renewable energy resources, they have also clearly generated disequilibrium in the power markets, resulting in significant increases in energy prices to most users, as well as value destruction for all stakeholders: consumers, renewable companies, electric utilities, financial institutions, and investors,” FAA notes.

“From 2005 to 2011, Germany’s CO2 emissions declined by 99 million metric tons, or 12 percent,” reports FAA. “Yet, since 2009, a number of factors have led to an increase in German emissions: low prices for CO2 certificates, low coal prices … larger power generation needs due to the increase in electricity consumption in response to the economic recovery, the decommissioning of nuclear plants, and the increase in power exports.”

While Germany’s emissions have been increasing in recent years, the U.S. has seen carbon dioxide dramatically reduced because of the increased use of natural gas brought about by hydraulic fracturing.

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Tags: Germany, green energy

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2014/07/21/germanys-412-billion-green-energy-plan-meets-harsh-reality/#ixzz38A4TlsLU

Wind and Solar Are Not Environmentally Friendly, Or Financially Feasible

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Big Wind’s Dirty Little Secret: Toxic Lakes and Radioactive Waste

OCTOBER 23, 2013
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The wind industry promotes itself as better for the environment than traditional energy sources such as coal and natural gas. For example, the industry claimsthat wind energy reduces carbon dioxide emissions that contribute to global warming.

But there are many ways to skin a cat. As IER pointed out last week, even if wind curbs CO2 emissions, wind installations injure, maim, and kill hundreds of thousands of birds each year in clear violation of federal law. Any marginal reduction in emissions comes at the expense of protected bird species, including bald and golden eagles. The truth is, all energy sources impact the natural environment in some way, and life is full of necessary trade-offs. The further truth is that affordable, abundant energy has made life for billions of people much better than it ever was.

Another environmental trade-off concerns the materials necessary to construct wind turbines. Modern wind turbines depend on rare earth minerals mined primarily from China. Unfortunately, given federal regulations in the U.S. that restrict rare earth mineral development and China’s poor record of environmental stewardship, the process of extracting these minerals imposes wretched environmental and public health impacts on local communities. It’s a story Big Wind doesn’t want you to hear.

Rare Earth Horrors

Manufacturing wind turbines is a resource-intensive process. A typical wind turbine contains more than 8,000 different components, many of which are made from steel, cast iron, and concrete. One such component are magnets made from neodymium and dysprosium, rare earth minerals mined almost exclusively in China, which controls 95 percent of the world’s supply of rare earth minerals.

Simon Parry from the Daily Mail traveled to Baotou, China, to see the mines, factories, and dumping grounds associated with China’s rare-earths industry. What he found was truly haunting:

As more factories sprang up, the banks grew higher, the lake grew larger and the stench and fumes grew more overwhelming.

‘It turned into a mountain that towered over us,’ says Mr Su. ‘Anything we planted just withered, then our animals started to sicken and die.’

People too began to suffer. Dalahai villagers say their teeth began to fall out, their hair turned white at unusually young ages, and they suffered from severe skin and respiratory diseases. Children were born with soft bones and cancer rates rocketed.

Official studies carried out five years ago in Dalahai village confirmed there were unusually high rates of cancer along with high rates of osteoporosis and skin and respiratory diseases. The lake’s radiation levels are ten times higher than in the surrounding countryside, the studies found.

As the wind industry grows, these horrors will likely only get worse. Growth in the wind industry could raise demand for neodymium by as much as 700 percent over the next 25 years, while demand for dysprosium could increase by 2,600 percent, according to a recent MIT study. The more wind turbines pop up in America, the more people in China are likely to suffer due to China’s policies. Or as the Daily Mail put it, every turbine we erect contributes to “a vast man-made lake of poison in northern China.”

Big Wind’s Dependence on China’s “Toxic Lakes”

The wind industry requires an astounding amount of rare earth minerals, primarily neodymium and dysprosium, which are key components of the magnets used in modern wind turbines. Developed by GE in 1982, neodymium magnets are manufactured in many shapes and sizes for numerous purposes. One of their most common uses is in the generators of wind turbines.

Estimates of the exact amount of rare earth minerals in wind turbines vary, but in any case the numbers are staggering. According to the Bulletin of Atomic Sciences, a 2 megawatt (MW) wind turbine contains about 800 pounds of neodymium and 130 pounds of dysprosium. The MIT study cited above estimates that a 2 MW wind turbine contains about 752 pounds of rare earth minerals.

To quantify this in terms of environmental damages, consider that mining one ton of rare earth minerals produces about one ton of radioactive waste, according to the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security. In 2012, the U.S. added a record 13,131 MW of wind generating capacity. That means that between 4.9 million pounds (using MIT’s estimate) and 6.1 million pounds (using the Bulletin of Atomic Science’s estimate) of rare earths were used in wind turbines installed in 2012. It also means that between 4.9 million and 6.1 million pounds of radioactive waste were created to make these wind turbines.

For perspective, America’s nuclear industry produces between 4.4 million and 5 million pounds of spent nuclear fuel each year. That means the U.S. wind industry may well have created more radioactive waste last year than our entire nuclear industry produced in spent fuel. In this sense, the nuclear industry seems to be doing more with less: nuclear energy comprised about one-fifth of America’s electrical generation in 2012, while wind accounted for just 3.5 percent of all electricity generated in the United States.

While nuclear storage remains an important issue for many U.S. environmentalists, few are paying attention to the wind industry’s less efficient and less transparent use of radioactive material via rare earth mineral excavation in China. The U.S. nuclear industry employs numerous safeguards to ensure that spent nuclear fuel is stored safely. In 2010, the Obama administration withdrew funding for Yucca Mountain, the only permanent storage site for the country’s nuclear waste authorized by federal law. Lacking a permanent solution, nuclear energy companies have used specially designed pools at individual reactor sites. On the other hand, China has cut mining permits and imposed export quotas, but is only now beginning to draft rules to prevent illegal mining and reduce pollution. America may not have a perfect solution to nuclear storage, but it sure beats disposing of radioactive material in toxic lakes like near Baotou, China.

Not only do rare earths create radioactive waste residue, but according to the Chinese Society for Rare Earths, “one ton of calcined rare earth ore generates 9,600 to 12,000 cubic meters (339,021 to 423,776 cubic feet) of waste gas containing dust concentrate, hydrofluoric acid, sulfur dioxide, and sulfuric acid, [and] approximately 75 cubic meters (2,649 cubic feet) of acidic wastewater.”

Conclusion

Wind energy is not nearly as “clean” and “good for the environment” as the wind lobbyists want you to believe. The wind industry is dependent on rare earth minerals imported from China, the procurement of which results in staggering environmental damages. As one environmentalist told the Daily Mail, “There’s not one step of the rare earth mining process that is not disastrous for the environment.” That the destruction is mostly unseen and far-flung does not make it any less damaging.

All forms of energy production have some environmental impact. However, it is disingenuous for wind lobbyists to hide the impacts of their industry while highlighting the impacts of others. From illegal bird deaths to radioactive waste, wind energy poses serious environmental risks that the wind lobby would prefer you never know about. This makes it easier for them when arguing for more subsidies, tax credits, mandates and government supports.

IER Policy Associates Travis Fisher and Alex Fitzsimmons authored this post. 

Windweasels Trying to Force Themselves on Another Unwilling Community

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Battle for Mount Emerald Reaches Boiling Point

July 20, 2014 by 

The battle to prevent RATCH from getting planning approval for the disaster it proposes for Mount Emerald has reached fever pitch. With 90% of locals bitterly opposed to the project, common sense would suggest a polite withdrawal by the developer. Instead, however, RATCH has dipped into the standard book of wind industry lies and half-truths (we covered a few of them in this post). Here’s the Cairns Post on a few more of them.

Storm brewing over wind farm in Tableland
Daniel Batemen
The Cairns Post
13 July 2014

bruce

THERE’S an ill wind blowing across the Tablelands, with rural landholders considering abandoning their multi-million dollar properties if the Mt Emerald Wind Farm gets the go-ahead.

They have accused the developers behind the renewable energy project of deceiving the community by downplaying the scale and impact of the wind farm, which involves the construction of up to 75 turbines – each about three times taller than Cairns Hospital.

Power producer Ratch Australia and property developer Port Bajool’s $380 million dollar project involves up to 75 wind turbines generating up to 225 megawatts of power from a 2400 hectare property aloft Mt Emerald, which is located about halfway between Atherton and Mareeba.

Jenny

Each tower is to stand about 80-90m tall, with approximately 50m long blades.

The proponents claim the project will potentially generate enough electricity to power 75,000 homes each year. The two-year construction phase of the project will also create an estimated 158 jobs, with up to 45 people to be employed locally once it is complete.

Since the development application for the wind farm was brought to the Tablelands Regional Council in 2010, a storm of protest about the project has been stirred up within the close-knit Walkamin and Tolga farming community.

When the Tablelands Wind Turbine Action Group conducted a recent survey of those living within 5km of the proposed project site, it found about 90 per cent of residents opposed the development.

The group says locals are terrified of health and noise impacts from the turbines; they are concerned about the impact the construction phase could have upon native habitat; they fear their property values will be driven right down; and they have even questioned the spacing and efficiency of the turbines.

Jenny Disley and her partner Jack Krikorian live 1800m away from the project site, where they will have a clear view of the giant bladed towers from their back porch.

The couple have struggled to sell their sprawling 42.9ha property, which has been on the market for three years through multiple real estate agents, with a current price tag of about $5 million.

“We’ve had a bit of interest but no one will buy,’’ Ms Disley told the Cairns Post. “They keep telling us the reason for that is because of the Mt Emerald wind farm uncertainty.”

The pair operate rural workers accommodation business Walkamin Enterprises, providing labour to the thriving local agricultural industry.

Mr Krikorian is most concerned about the impact noise generated by the turbines may have on up to 40 workers staying in various cabins and homes on their property.

“If the noise impacts on those 40 people, that’s the end of our business,’’ he said.

poster

“We are in the middle of an extremely active horticultural area, particularly for bananas, and all of those people need our service continuously.

“How do we get compensated, if everything that we work for is impacted?”

Ms Disley said if they were unable to be compensated for any land devaluation, and unable to sell, they would be left with no other choice but to abandon their land, becoming “wind farm refugees”.

“You can’t sell,’’ she said.

“You’ve sunk your whole life savings back into the property. If you can’t access your superannuation through a sale, you can’t live there because of the noise and infra (low frequency) sound.”

Ratch Australia thoroughly refutes any accusations the farm will generate noise pollution. It says any sound generated by the turbines will be less than that heard on a typical quiet suburban street (a level of 40 decibels).

The company and Port Bajool picked Mt Emerald for its “excellent” wind source, its proximity to the electricity grid, and potential for only “minimal” environmental and social impact.

At 4.5km away from Mt Emerald, one of the oldest families of the area, the Watkins family, believes that while the project may be a good idea, but it is being planned for the wrong spot.

Mt Uncle farmer and distillery owner Bruce Watkins says wind farms should be neither seen nor heard.

“If you see these things, you’re too close to them,’’ he said. “That’s the fact.”

“I’m not against green energy. None of us in (the action) group are – we’re all after sustainable, healthy, green energy. I’m putting solar panels up (on the distillery roof) now.”

“But where these so-called environmentalists go wrong, is they say we must have green energy, but they forget the (real) cost.”

The family has a berry farm within 1.5km of the wind farm site, employing more than 200 people. Mr Watkins said the construction phase of the development could create widespread problems for transport, and therefore businesses, across the region.

“There is a massive migration of the equipment to come up (to the Tablelands),’’ he said.

“You’ve got to appreciate they’ve got the right to commandeer main roads, traffic, everything. The delays in the traffic will be staggering.

“I’m not going to overemphasise it, but the fact is they’re going to get these things on the road, which are 80-tonne things, and they’re going to have to resurface the roads.

“At whose expense? We don’t know.”

When Bruce’s daughter Krista and her husband got married five years ago, they had been planning on building a dream house on the family’s land 2km from Mt Emerald.

The mountain even provided a backdrop in the couple’s wedding photos.

“We would have liked to have started to build a home there this year,’’ Krista said.

“But there is no way I’m going to spend $500,000 building an average home when the fact is I could be looking at a depreciated value of more than 50 per cent because of the wind turbines.”

About four years ago, the couple convinced friends to purchase property at the nearby Rangeview Estate.

Krista said it was a mistake that cost them a good relationship with their friends.

“It was the day they signed their contract, they bumped into some locals who were displaying Ratch’s own documents about the wind farm at the Tolga markets,’’ she said.

“The friends, furious, came back to us and said ‘you didn’t tell us about this’, and we saw (the development application) for the first time. We had no idea. (The developers) told us – many of us – it was just a few wind turbines. Way over the back. That was just a blatant lie, because they’re going to be all over that mountain.”

Last month, the development application was called in by the Deputy Premier and Minister for State Development, Infrastructure and Planning Jeff Seeney.

The minister, at the time, said given the complexity of the proposed development, independent assessments would be carried out to evaluate the true economic, environmental and community impacts and benefits of the project.

The development could be approved later this year, with construction to commence in early 2015.

Ratch Australia executive general manager, business development, Geoff Dutton, said the company had been as open and transparent as possible with the community, maintaining solid communication lines about the project since it was first tabled with the Tablelands Regional Council.

He assured locals would not be disturbed by the turbines, once they were operational.

“We have tried to analyse every aspect of noise and where it will go,’’ he said.

“We look at the individual wind turbine manufacturers and their offerings to us, and go through, with them, very detailed specifications.

“Wind towers aren’t just built, they’re built with a view to being within regulations.”

He conceded there would be “some queues” for traffic during the construction phase, as the turbines and their blades were being transported up to the mountain.

“We won’t be going up from Cairns through Mareeba – the more direct route – that is not practical because there are a few sharp bends that no blade will ever go around,’’ he said.

“The better way is to go the long way round further south and then come back around from the Ravenshoe direction up towards the site.”
The Cairns Post

One of the crackers tossed up by RATCH is that the noise generated by its turbines will be the same as a ‘typical quiet suburban street’. Depending on the suburb, most traffic noise dies down well before midnight and rarely resumes much before 6am. Leaving suburbanites a fair opportunity to catch a few zzzs during the hours of darkness.

Giant fans, on the other hand, operate whenever the wind blows – which usually means late evening/early morning and for some strange reason their noise has a habit of annoying neighbours, preventing them from sleeping and otherwise impacting on their good health. For the uninitiated, the sound tracks to these 2 videos might yield a clue.

****
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOU39ws1gHo

****
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYpgVPAK5To

Leave Mount Emerald to the eagles.

Aussies Dump the Regressive Carbon Tax!

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Carbon Tax Gone – RET to Follow

July 19, 2014 by  

Australia has started to dismantle the ‘green’ policies that have sabotaged its economy and fuelled the wind turbine industry – all with no perceivable environmental benefit – yet generating widespread annoyance across rural Australia. The first to go was the Carbon Tax – which Tory Aardvark has described so well in his post below – next will be the RET.

oz_no_carbon_tax

Australia Dumps Carbon Tax
Tory Aardvark
18 July 2014

One thing you can be absolutely sure of, globally, there will be a huge number of outraged Greens and warming alarmists because Australia has dumped it’s carbon tax.

This as the saying goes really is a double whammy, Australian PM Tony Abbott is a politician who has actually kept his word and dumped the hugely unsuccessful and deeply unpopular Carbon Tax, that Labor PM Julia Gillard promised voters she would never introduce, and then promptly broke her word.

The Carbon Tax was ill conceived, it generated virtually no revenue because of its negative impact on productivity and led directly to the downfall of the Gillard Labor/Green coalition, so it wasn’t all bad really.

Alarm bells will be sounding across the Green world as those that believe that crippling Green taxation will allow the human race to select a climate of its own choosing, can see their belief system about to come crashing down. In the immortal words of EU Climate Commissar Connie Hedegaard ‘A world you like. With a climate you like’, delusional thinking even by 15th Century standards, frankly bizarre in the 21st Century.

The response from the Green rent seekers, crony capitalists, left wing politicians and others complicit in the AGW scam has been, well what you would expect really:

EU climate commissioner Connie Hedegaard said the European Union regretted the repeal of the tax just as new pricing initiatives are emerging around the world.

“The EU is convinced that pricing carbon is not only the most cost-effective way to reduce emissions, but also THE tool to make the economic paradigm shift the world needs. This is why the EU will continue to work towards global carbon pricing with all international partners,” she said.

“With today’s repeal of the Carbon Pricing Mechanism, the discussions to link the Australian system and Europe’s carbon market will evidently be discontinued.”

Assorted Green NGOs are muttering darkly about irresponsibility, catastrophic climate change, rising sea levels and Green Armageddon because a country that emits just 1.19% of global CO2 emissions has repealed a job and wealth killing tax. To obfuscate the tiny global percentage of CO2 that Australia emits the warming alarmist cabal have invented CO2 emissions per capita to overstate their case and make Australia appear to be a bigger “polluter” than it actually is.

Climate scientists say the country is also likely to expect more extreme weather events as the plant warms, including prolonged periods of drought and more wildfires.

This Green tax definitely had mythical properties being able to control the weather, prevent wildfires and drought.  Where will the Unicorns be able to drink now?

WWF-Australia CEO Dermot O’Gorman said the move ensured polluting would now be “free”.

“This will see carbon pollution go up, not down,” he said.

“Without an effective mechanism to cut carbon pollution, Australia is unlikely to meet its international commitments to cut pollution by 5-25% by 2020 and tackle global warming.”

There is more bad news looming if you are possessed of an irrational fear of CO2, it appears that the world’s oldest Carbon Market is about to join Australia’s Carbon Tax in the dumpster:

Another looming setback to connecting markets and eventually setting a global price on polluting carbon is the possibility that New Zealand’s ETS, small but one of the first to be established, will be scrapped after a September election.

In remains to be seen how many other countries will further remove themselves from the UN backed AGW scare, Canada is a  likely candidate, in a devastating blow to the UNFCCC process Canada withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol stating “Kyoto was not the way forward for Canada or the world” just one day after COP18 finished.

Japan is also wavering on committing Green economic suicide now, then of course there is Putin’s Russia which will play along with the AGW scam for as long as it suits Gazprom and not 1 second longer.
Tory Aardvark

The mandated biannual RET review is due to present its findings in a few weeks –  but STT hears that the current version of the RET will disappear and the planned adjustments will promote renewable energy but also spell the end of the wind industry in Australia. For we all know – wind turbines don’t run on wind – they run on subsidies. Take away the subsidies  – and the problem will disappear.

Unicorn Drinking from a River

NO Surprise, When a Windweasel Lies! or…Liar Liar, Turbines on Fire

/ 1957chev / 7 Comments

Wind turbine blaze scandal

  • Thu, 17 Jul 2014
 

10 times more catch fire than reported

Up to 120 wind turbines catch fire annually, according to the journal of Fire Safety Science. This is 10 times the number reported by the industry, The figures, compiled by engineers at Imperial College London and the University of Edinburgh, make fire the second-largest cause of accidents after blade failure.

The researchers claim that out of 200,000 turbines around the world, 117 fires take place annually, many more than the 12 reported by wind farm companies.

Each wind turbine costs more than £2 million and generates an estimated income of more than £500,000 per year.Any loss or downtime of these valuable assets makes the industry less viable and productive.

Dr Guillermo Rein of Imperial’s department of mechanical engineering, said: ‘Fires are a problem for the industry, impacting on energy production, economic output and emitting toxic fumes.

‘This could cast a shadow over the industry’s green credentials.
‘Worryingly our report shows that fire may be a bigger problem than what is currently reported. Our research outlines a number of strategies that can be adopted by the industry to make these turbines safer and more fire resistant in the future.’

Wind turbines catch fire because highly flammable materials such as hydraulic oil and plastics are in close proximity to machinery and electrical wires.

These can ignite a fire if they overheat or are faulty. Lots of oxygen, in the form of high winds, can quickly fan a fire inside a turbine, the research showed.

It contradicts the findings of a report into the wind industry, commissioned by the Health and Safety Executive in 2013, which concluded that the safety risks associated with wind turbines are very low.

The wind industry last night questioned the validity of the new research.
Chris Streatfeild, of Renewable UK which represents wind firms, told the Mail Online: ‘The industry would challenge a number of the assumptions made in the report, including the questionable reliability of the data sources and a failure to understand the safety and integrity standards for fire safety that are standard practice in any large wind turbine.

‘Wind turbines are designed to international standards to meet mandatory health and safety standards including fire safety risks.
‘The industry remains committed to promoting a safe environment for its workers and the public, and no member of the public has ever been injured by a wind turbine in the UK.’

 

Read more at http://www.yachtingmonthly.com/news/536981/wind-turbine-blaze-scandal#q5ETdeRb7BlzmDT4.99

No Cost/Benefit Analysis? NO Wind Turbines!

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Blowing Our Dollars in the Wind

Wind energy produces costly, intermittent, unpredictable electricity. But Government subsidies and mandates have encouraged a massive gamble on wind investments in Australia – over $7 billion has already been spent and another $30 billion is proposed. This expenditure is justified by the claim that by using wind energy there will be less carbon dioxide emitted to the atmosphere which will help to prevent dangerous global warming.

Incredibly, this claim is not supported by any credible cost-benefit analysis – a searching enquiry is well overdue. Here is a summary of things that should be included in the analysis.

Firstly, no one knows how much global warming is related to carbon dioxide and how much is due to natural variability. However, the historical record shows that carbon dioxide it is not the most important factor, and no one knows whether climate feedbacks are positive or negative. Also, in many ways, the biosphere and humanity would benefit from more warmth, carbon dioxide and moisture in the atmosphere.

However, let’s assume that reducing man’s production of carbon dioxide is a sensible goal and consider whether wind power is likely to achieve it. To do this we need to look at the whole life cycle of a wind tower.

Wind turbines are not just big simple windmills – they are massive complex machines whose manufacture and construction consume much energy and many expensive materials.  These include steel for the tower, concrete for the footings, fibre glass for the nacelle, rare metals for the electro-magnets, steel and copper for the machinery, high quality lubricating oils for the gears, fibre glass or aluminium for the blades, titanium and other materials for weather-proof paints, copper, aluminium and steel for the transmission lines and support towers, and gravel for the access roads.

There is a long production chain for each of these materials. Mining and mineral extraction rely on diesel power for mobile equipment and electrical power for haulage, hoisting, crushing, grinding, milling, smelting, refining. These processes need 24/7 reliable electric power which, in Australia, is most likely to come from coal.

These raw materials then have to be transported to many specialised manufacturing plants, again using large quantities of energy, generating more carbon dioxide.

Then comes the construction phase, starting with building a network of access roads, clearance of transmission routes, and excavation of the massive footings for the towers. Almost all of this energy will come from diesel fuel, with increased production of carbon dioxide. Moreover, every bit of land cleared results in the production of carbon dioxide as the plant material dozed out of the way rots or is burnt, and the exposed soil loses its humus to oxidation.

Once the turbine starts operating, the many towers, transmission lines and access roads need more maintenance and repair than a traditional power plant that produces concentrated energy from one small plot of land using a small number of huge, well-tested, well protected machines. Turbines usually operate in windy, exposed, isolated locations. Blades need to be cleaned using large specialised cranes; towers and machinery need regular inspection and maintenance; and mobile equipment and manpower needs to be on standby for lightning strikes, fires or accidents. All of these activities require diesel powered equipment which produces more carbon dioxide.

Even when they do produce energy, wind towers often produce it at time when demand is low – at night for example. There is no benefit in this unwanted production, but it is usually counted as saving carbon fuels.

Every wind farm also needs backup power to cover the +65% of wind generating capacity that is lost because the wind is not blowing, or blowing such a gale that the turbines have to shut down.

In Australia, most backup is provided by coal or gas plants which are forced to operate intermittently to offset the erratic winds. Coal plants and many gas plants cannot switch on and off quickly but must maintain steam pressure and “spinning reserve” in order to swing in quickly when the fickle wind drops. This causes grid instability and increases the carbon dioxide produced per unit of electricity. This waste should be debited to the wind farm that caused it.

Wind turbines also consume energy from the grid when they are idle – for lubrication, heating, cooling, lights, metering, hydraulic brakes, energising the electro-magnets, even to keep the blades turning lazily (to prevent warping) and to maintain line voltage when there is no wind. A one-month study of the Wonthaggi wind farm in Australia found that the facility consumed more electricity than it produced for 16% of the period studied. A detailed study in USA showed that 8.3% of total wind energy produced was consumed by the towers themselves. This is not usually counted in the carbon equation.

The service life of wind towers is far shorter than traditional power plants. Already many European wind farms have reached the end of their life and contractors are now gearing up for a new boom in the wind farm demolition and scrap removal business. This phase is likely to pose dangers for the environment and require much diesel powered equipment producing yet more carbon dioxide.

Most estimates of carbon dioxide “saved” by using wind power look solely at the carbon dioxide that would be produced by a coal-fired station producing the rated capacity of the wind turbine. They generally ignore all the other ways in which wind power increases carbon energy usage, and they ignore the fact that wind farms seldom produce name-plate capacity.

When all the above factors are taken into account over the life of the wind turbine, only a very few turbines in good wind locations are likely to save any carbon dioxide. Most will be either break-even or carbon-negative – the massive investment in wind may achieve zero climate “benefits” at great cost.

Entrepreneurs or consumers who choose wind power should be free to do so but taxpayers and electricity consumers should not be forced to subsidise their choices for questionable reasons. People who claim climate sainthood for wind energy should be required to prove this by detailed life-of-project analysis before getting legislative support and subsidies.

Otherwise we are just blowing our dollars in the wind.
 

 

Aussies Axe the Carbon Tax! Finally! It’s Gone!

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Posted on July 16, 2014 by 

Carbontax_tombstoneAn ill-fated foray that never made much sense

Guest opinion by Phillip Hutchings

With perhaps a few more grandstanding shenanigans in our Federal Senate this week, Australia’s two-year experiment with a Carbon Tax will soon end. Legislation to kill the tax, which was brought in by the left-leaning Labor-Greens coalition in mid-2012, is now being finalised by our one year-old conservative Government.

 

That carbon tax has cost three prime ministerships, confused the voting population, and achieved pretty much nothing. Other market dynamics have been far more important in changing Australia’s greenhouse emissions, yet it’s politically insensitive to mention them.

The sanctimoniousness of such a tax in Australia is breathtaking. We are an energy heavy-weight, the world’s largest exporter of coal. Soon we will also be the world’s largest exporter of liquefied natural gas. At the same time as our Labor prime ministers were being successively culled by infighting over the carbon tax, the world’s biggest oil & gas companies were directing more than two-thirds of global investment in LNG production into Australia, the biggest investment boom ever in this country.

We are an economy built on the world’s hunger for fossil fuels. Yet with our gas and coal sources being either offshore or in remote locations, these vital export industries are mostly hidden from Australian voters.

The carbon tax itself was a lightweight. The theory underlying a carbon tax is to provide a long term price signal to drive a change in the industrial and consumer behaviour. On this score, the Australian tax was doomed to failure. After all, politically it had to appeal to the latte-sipping lefties, but without affecting their wallets.

The outcome – a watered-down policy that was all noise and no effect.

To minimise the economic fall-out, the Labor-Green Government limited the carbon tax to large industrial emitters (more than 25,000 CO2e/yr). Road transport and agriculture was exempt. Put together, that meant only about 185 companies in Australia’s US$ 1.5 trillion economy had to comply. And even those few were only lightly touched.

Industries which are “trade exposed” such as cement or aluminium smelting were mostly excused. They got either 66% or 94.5% of their carbon cost covered by the award of free units.

Just over one-third of Australia’s carbon emissions come from coal-fired electricity generators. And the dirtiest electricity comes from the aging brown-coal plants in Victoria – with almost double the emissions of modern gas-fired plants. Yet being located in a Labor-voting union heartland, they too got off lightly with the first half of their emissions effectively carbon- tax free. Nice.

None of which gave much incentive at all for carbon reduction. It’s hard to see any evidence at all of industries making long term investments in lower carbon-emitting factories or generating plants.

The domestic airlines got slugged with an extra 6 c/litre fuel excise, surely as crude a carbon tax as you can get. How was that supposed to reduce emissions? Yep, sure, aircraft fleets get renewed over time, and you bet, fuel efficiency is a factor when selecting alternative aircraft. But a surcharge on fuel itself was not going to change Qantas’ emissions.

So as a policy instrument, Australia’s carbon tax was never going to change emissions itself. It was a neutered program, raising Government revenue but not effective in changing behaviour.

https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/clip_image0024.png?w=640

Source – Quarterly Update of Australia’s National Greenhouse Gas Inventory: December 2013 Australia’s National Greenhouse Account

Yet, Australia’s greenhouse emissions have been declining for almost eight years. After decades of steady increase, that pause in carbon emissions since 2007 is striking. And it started six years before the carbon tax was implemented. It’s pretty easy to find the main reason for that – a steady fall in national electricity consumption. Latest figures show that Australia’s electricity use is at the lowest level since 2006. And with three-quarters of Australia’s electricity coming from carbon-intensive coal-fired sources, the fall in electricity use has led directly to a pause in carbon emissions.

But what caused Australian consumers to wind back their power use over the past eight years? Simple price elasticity, that’s what. There’s been huge investment in the network, the poles and wires to deliver (as opposed to generate) electricity. In most states, that led to a doubling of retail electricity prices. And yes, consumers did respond to that price signal, changing from electrical profligacy to parsimony. Nothing to do with the carbon tax, it was the regulated electricity supply industry recouping their capital investment.

What did we learn from this? The theory behind a carbon tax works fine – provide a price signal, and the consumer responds. It’s just that in this case, it was nothing to do with the carbon tax and all to do with regulated utilities doubling power prices as they caught up on network investment.

Here’s another little perverse change. Some years ago, I helped a fledgling gas producer negotiate a long term gas sales contract for electricity generation. The customer was a state Government-owned electricity generator, then setting up a new flagship and clean gas-fired generation plant. That helped shift the state’s generation sources ten years ago away from dirty coal, and into cleaner gas.

Yet earlier this year, that generator announced the closure of its gas generation in favour of dirtier coal generation. The reason? With three large export LNG plants now being commissioned for export, that gas is worth more for sale to China than for powering my fridge. In effect, a state Government snubbed its nose at the intent, let alone the price signal, from the Federal carbon tax.

So as a policy instrument, Australia’s carbon tax has been a failure. It never could have worked. And politically, it’s been a graveyard. Let’s hope politicians and bureaucrats from more enlightened jurisdictions study it and learn.

Australia’s carbon tax – no wonder it’s about to be buried.

Renewable Energy Targets Must Go….It’s a SCAM!!!

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Burchell Wilson: Sectors Should Join to Beat the RET

July 16, 2014 by  

 

Together we can protect small business and mums and dads from the burden of bad energy policy

Burchell Wilson is an extraordinary economist and holds the chief economist role at the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. He writes today in the Australian;

Sectors should join to beat RET
Burchell Wilson
The Australian
17 July 2014

A QUIET but effective lobbying campaign is under way by the Australian Aluminium Council to deflect the unnecessary economic damage being inflicted on the industry by a dramatically expanded renewable energy target.

Rather than tackle Labor’s hidden carbon tax head-on, representatives of the aluminium industry understandably are seeking to exempt themselves from the fatal toll the RET is inflicting on Australian producers of aluminium.

From a political economy perspective the strategy adopted by the sector makes sense and would appear to be an attractive option, at least as far as the aluminium industry is concerned.

However, exempting aluminium refiners and smelters alone from the RET has the effect of shifting the cost of the scheme on to other energy users. It may allow aluminium producers to save hundreds of millions of dollars in energy costs, yet it unfortunately heaps the cost burden of the scheme further sideways on to mums and dads and small-business operators at the expense of the broader community.

The likelihood that those who would be asked to bear the cost of these exemptions will provide sufficient political resistance to these proposals is limited. Small businesses are too busy keeping their heads above water to be overly engaged in policy machinations and most households are focused on putting food on the table and ensuring their kids get the best chance in life.

Similar behaviour by sectoral interests was seen around the imposition of the carbon tax. Rather than opposing bad policy outright, many focused instead through necessity on carving themselves out of the policy to minimise exposure. As a political dynamic this is one reason so many policy failures get up in the first instance. There can be only limited effective opposition to bad policy when industry sectors focus instead on narrowly targeted campaigns to moderate their own impacts.

All of which serves to highlight the importance of broad-based industry associations in the political environment as advocates for good economic policy. The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry represents the interests of a large base of energy users in the business community covering 300,000 businesses and acts on their behalf to ensure their views are considered in the national policy debate. The broad interests of industry in relation to the RET also happens to largely coincide with those of household energy users; both groups would benefit considerably from the scheme being phased out or scaled back.

The RET operates to drive up electricity prices for the sake of high-cost carbon abatement opportunities. Soon to be released modelling for ACCI by Deloitte Access Economics shows this will not only impose costs on energy consumers directly, it will also lead to broader economic damage to the Australian economy to the tune of $30 billion across the remaining life of the scheme. Jobs and investment will also be a casualty of the RET due to the loss of competitiveness it inflicts on Australian industry. The chief bene­ficiaries of the RET are in the wind industry, which will pocket $37bn in subsidies until 2030, or about $2.5bn a year on average.

Rather than seeking an exemption for individual sectors, ACCI is seeking wholesale reform of the RET on behalf of all energy users. Just as Palmer United Party senator Jacqui Lambie wants to see the entire state of Tasmania exempted from the scheme, ACCI believes the most appropriate exemption is one for the entire country.
The Australian

A reminder of Burchell’s cracking interview on the ABC’s 7.30 with Sarah Ferguson broadcast on 17 February 2014 (see our post here) – transcript follows.

**

****
Transcript:
SARAH FERGUSON, PRESENTER: A day after US Secretary of State John Kerry described climate change as perhaps the world’s most fearsome weapon of mass destruction, the Abbott Government has today taken another step towards overhauling the climate policies left over from Labor’s years in power. The Government has announced a major review of the impact of clean energy on retail power prices. It’ll be headed by a self-confessed global warming sceptic, businessman Dick Warburton. And it’s widely expected to result in a decision to wind back the current Renewable Energy Target, which aims to ensure that 20 per cent of Australia’s power comes from renewable sources like wind and solar by the year 2020. Industry groups are lobbying for the target to be abolished or cut. Among them is the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Its chief economist, Burchell Wilson, joined me earlier from Canberra. Burchell Wilson, thank you very much for joining the program.

BURCHELL WILSON, AUST. CHAMBER OF COMMERCE & INDUSTRY: You’re welcome.

SARAH FERGUSON: There was a substantial review of the Renewable Energy Target in 2012. Why do we need another review so soon after?

BURCHELL WILSON: Well the review is scheduled by legislation to take place in 2014, so obviously it has a parliamentary mandate to take place. But the other thing about the scheme is there needs to be more clarity around the cost it’s imposing on consumers, the cost it’s imposing on industry and the sort of inefficiencies it’s giving rise to in the energy sector.

SARAH FERGUSON: What about those people who are investing in the renewable sector, are they not part of the Chamber of Commerce as well?

BURCHELL WILSON: Look, the problem with the Renewable Energy Target is it’s imposing a cost of $1.6 billion across the economy. It amounts to about five per cent of household energy costs now and that’s just going to mushroom over time as the scheme continues to be rolled out.

SARAH FERGUSON: Let’s just talk about the domestic cost for a minute because the Climate Change Authority did look at the consequences of scrapping the target, if that were to happen as a result of the review, and they found that the effect on domestic energy prices would be negligible. Why do you say it’s such an important factor in this decision to review the target then?

BURCHELL WILSON: Look, you’ve had a range of regulatory authorities around the country come out in recent – in recent months and say – and tell us that the cost of the RET to average households is around $102 per annum, which is about five per cent of their electricity bill …

SARAH FERGUSON: And how much of that is covered by government compensation?

BURCHELL WILSON: None of it. It’s all – it’s a consumer subsidy. Taxpayers don’t foot the bill, energy users do. That just makes it more insidious. It’s not on the budget anywhere. It’s a cost to consumers that they don’t really know that they’re wearing.

SARAH FERGUSON: Is $100 a year a good enough reason to consider scrapping the Renewable Energy Target, if that is indeed one of the factors at play here?

BURCHELL WILSON: Look, the problem with the Renewable Energy Target is it’s a very inefficient way of abating carbon. The Productivity Commission’s told us – told us this. It’s costing up to $525 per tonne to abate carbon under the renewable energy target. There are low-cost alternatives available and, effectively, we’re undermining our emissions reduction effort by persisting with the Renewable Energy Target.

SARAH FERGUSON: Would you like to see it scrapped?

BURCHELL WILSON: Ah, we need to see it wound back in terms of its ambition and gradually phased out would be desirable from the perspective of industry and energy users.

SARAH FERGUSON: Phased out over what period? What are you actually calling for here?

BURCHELL WILSON: Look, this has to be examined as part of the review. There needs to be some provision made for the sunk investment under the scheme, but over time we should be winding this back, allowing the sunk investment to naturally decay and fall away and allow the renewable sector to compete on an even – on a level footing with baseload generators and efficient sources of energy.

SARAH FERGUSON: And is that something that you can realistically expect, were you to wind back the Renewable Energy Target in the short term, as you propose?

BURCHELL WILSON: Look, if people want to consume renewable energy, there are schemes available for them to opt in on a voluntary basis, but mandating this cost on consumers without providing any sort of level of clarity around the costs they’re imposing is bad policy and it’s bad for energy users.

SARAH FERGUSON: Let’s just have a look at the make-up of the panel who are going to consider this review. Dick Warburton is a self-avowed sceptic. His views on the subjects are well known. Is he an appropriate person to be leading this review?

BURCHELL WILSON: Absolutely. Dick led the charge against Australia having the highest carbon tax in the world. You’ll realise that Australians per capita pay $380 per head under the carbon tax, whereas Europeans under the ETS, they’re paying about $1.50. So there is no comparison between what we’re doing domestically and the efforts that are taking place abroad. We are an outlier.

SARAH FERGUSON: Just stay with the make-up of the panel for the moment. We’ve also got Brian Fisher, who has a long history of being opposed to pricing mechanisms in this area. It does sound as though the outcome of the review is to some extent preordained?

BURCHELL WILSON: Brian Fisher is a first-rate economist, one of the best in the country. If he – I don’t think he has any predetermined views on the matter, but he will approach this like an economist and he will …

SARAH FERGUSON: But a long history of opposition to pricing mechanisms for tackling climate change.

BURCHELL WILSON: Well, I don’t know if that’s true, but what he will tell you is the Renewable Energy Target is high-cost, it’s inefficient as a means of abating carbon, and if that’s your primary objective with respect to the RET, then we should scrap it altogether.

SARAH FERGUSON: What do you expect the outcome of the review to be?

BURCHELL WILSON: Look, we’re hopeful that at least the scale of the ambition for the Renewable Energy Target will be scaled back, but also hopeful that there’ll be some provision made for phasing the thing out over time and putting the renewable sector on a competitive footing with other forms of generation.

SARAH FERGUSON: It’s not going to be an an even footing though because if you remove the mandated target, that’s going to harm investor confidence in the renewable sector, isn’t it?

BURCHELL WILSON: Look, the Renewable Energy Target is – it’s corporate welfare on a massive scale directed towards the renewable sector. I don’t know why anyone would have any level of sympathy for businesses that – they don’t employ many people, that they don’t export anything and they’ve surreptitiously imposed these massive costs on energy consumers for the sake of lining their own profits.

SARAH FERGUSON: Do you have any sympathy for investors in the renewable energy sector in Australia tonight?

BURCHELL WILSON: Ah, well, they’ve run quite a disingenuous campaign in recent years, they’ve hidden the cost of the RET and they’re finally experiencing a level of accountability. I think that’s entirely appropriate and it’s strong leadership from the Prime Minister, the Industry Minister and the Environment Minister in putting the RET on the table and having an honest examination of the issue.

SARAH FERGUSON: Thank you very much indeed, Burchell Wilson, for joining us. We’ll see how the review pans out.

BURCHELL WILSON: Thanks very much.
ABC 7.30

STT says: “Hats off Burchell.”

Wind is free? Not on your life! The Price we Pay is OUTRAGOUS!

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“The Wind is Free” and other

          pork pies (lies)

In May of this year the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural

Resources launched the “Green Paper on Energy Policy in Ireland”. Many

of my readers probably have not read the Paper, and who could blame you? Some

of you might have battled though parts of it, some of you might have read the

executive summary. I dragged myself through the whole thing and the recurring

thought that flashed through my mind was “hot air, lots of it”. This thought was quite

appropriate as the document, although pretending to be a comprehensive renewable

energy policy, was little more than an homage to the wind farm.

Rather than go through the entire sordid document, I thought that over two days I

would look at two recurring themes in this Green paper about wind energy and show

them for what they are: calculated, but nevertheless blatant, lies.

.
Lie #:1 Wind energy is a “free and plentiful” form of energy

Let’s just get one thing straight from the outset: Any form of renewable energy

is not cheap, andmost certainly not free.

Renewable energy is far more expensive than energy from coal, for example,

which is very cheap but also very dirty. Coal is so cheap at the moment that the

ESB are actually buying more and more (American) coal for MoneyPoint, which

seems a bit daft when the poor consumer is payingmore and more for the electricity

coming from the wind farms. Somebody’s getting rich but it ain’t you or me.  This is not

something we are doing to save money. It is something we are doing to save the planet;

and because the EU (ruled by the wind industry) has a gun to our head. So when the

Minister talks about how the wind is free and doesn’t Ireland have a lot of it, that is a

blatant lie. If we accept that we need renewable energy, and that we are going to pay

though our noses for that renewable energy, does it not make sense to try and produce

more of the cheaper forms of renewable energy?

Wind is the most expensive form of renewable energy. It is also unreliable,

because the wind does not blow all the time, and sometimes it blows too hard and so

the turbine is shut down (before it catches fire), but you pay for it 24/7. Two other far

more reliable forms of energy also happen to be a lot cheaper: biomass and solar.

The cost of energy has become a life or death issue as more and more Irish families

experience fuel poverty –

many citizens simply cannot afford to light or heat their homes. That’s a huge problem,

especially in winter.  Here’s the price comparison:

Wind costs €135 per ton of carbon saved. There are very few jobs in the Irish wind

industry as the turbines and accessories are all built in other countries, and so the

technicians and maintenance crews come from other countries.  The only Irish jobs

would be short-term installation jobs – low skills, poorly paid.

Domestic Solar PV costs €100 per ton of carbon saved, and it would create loads

of  jobs as people would need solar panels fitted on their houses. I know you are going to say

that the sun and Ireland don’t really belong in the same sentence, but these things run on

daylight as opposed to sun, and they really do make a difference.The conversion of

MoneyPoint power station to biomass would cost €60 per ton of carbon saved. That

means it costs less than half the cost of wind! It also means that the huge carbon footprint

of MoneyPoint would rapidly diminish as it stops burning that dirty American coal. Finally,

there would be loads of good long-term jobs as the biomass industry in this country becomes

profitable and so can flourish.

To recap: Any renewable energy is expensive and we must pay for it. There is no such

thing as free green energy. There are three proven sources of renewable energy: wind, sun,

and biomass. Both sun and biomass are cheaper than wind and will create far more Irish

jobs. Finally, the sun and biomass do not need huge pylons

and wind farms, so no loss of tourism, local industries, agriculture and food production, and no

adverse effects on our health.

Now, is that a no-brainer or what?

 

 

Could This Be the Dawning of Better Days for the UK? End the Greenscam~!

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UK’s new energy and environment ministers opposed green energy

Matthew Hancock called for cuts to wind power subsidies while Liz Truss claimed renewable power was damaging the economy…

Britain's new minister for energy, nusiness and enterprise, Matthew Hancock at 10 Downing Street on July 15, 2014.
Britain’s new minister for energy, business and enterprise, Matthew Hancock, at 10 Downing Street. Photograph: Suzanne Plunkett/Reuters

The new set of Conservative environment and energy ministers announced on Tuesday bring a track record of opposing renewable energy, having fought against wind and solar farms, enthusiastically backed fracking and argued that green subsidies damage the economy.

New energy minister, Matthew Hancock, signed a letter to David Cameron in 2012 demanding that subsidies for onshore windfarms were slashed. “I support renewable energy but we need to do it in a way that gives the most value for money and that does not destroy our natural environment,” he said at the time.

Hancock, who takes over from Michael Fallon, also opposed new turbines in his Suffolk constituency, arguing: “The visual and other impact of the proposed turbines is completely unacceptable in this attractive rural corner of Suffolk.”

New environment secretary and former Shell employee, Liz Truss, dismissed clean renewable energy as “extremely expensive” and said it was damaging the economy during an appearance on BBC Question Time last October.

“We do need to look at the green taxes because at the moment they are incentivising particular forms of energy that are extremely expensive,” she said. “I would like to see the rolling back of green taxes because it is wrong that we are implementing green taxes faster than other countries. We may be potentially exporting jobs out of the country as our energy is so expensive.”

In 2009, as deputy director of the free-market thinktank Reform, Truss said energy infrastructure in Britain was being damaged by politicians’ obsession with green technology: “Vast amounts of taxpayers’ money are being spent subsidising uneconomic activity,” she said. Research from the London School of Economics recently concluded that green policies were not harming economic growth.

Truss will have a key role in regulating the environmental safety of shale gas exploration and has said fracking would benefit people living nearby. “We need to make sure shale gas is being exploited in this country, which will benefit local communities,” she said on BBC Question Time. As well as fracking, Truss backed “renewable” nuclear power as a way to “hit green targets”.

In her first statement since being appointed as environment secretary, Truss said: “I look forward to tackling the important issues facing our rural communities including championing British food, protecting people from flooding and improving the environment.” She did not mention fracking or the controversial badger cull, which she has supported in parliamentary votes.

Truss, Hancock and another new appointee to the Department of Energy and Climate Change, Amber Rudd, all face conflicts between their new ministerial responsibilities and their previous constituency work.

Truss has spoken out about insufficient flood protection for farmland in her Norfolk South West constituency. But she is now responsible for flood defences and faces a £500m hole in the budget needed to keep pace with the rising flood risk being driven by climate change.

Truss has also been a vocal opponent of an energy-from-waste project – an incinerator – at Kings Lynn. She has opposed solar farms being built and also complained the energy secretary Ed Davey that subsidies helping crops to used to generate energy was making straw difficult to get for pig farmers.

One of the most contentious issues Truss faces will be over the badger
cull. Her East Anglian constituency is far from the bovine TB hotspots in
the west of the UK, but she has been keenly involved in rural issues – for
instance, she is pro-hunting.

Lord Krebs, chair of the sub-group of the Committee on Climate Change that
looks at adaptation to the effects of global warming, said at a meeting of
the all-party environment group in Westminster on Tuesday that he would
wait for a private conversation with Truss before advising her on that.

But he did say that he would offer his advice on badgers and bovine TB – a
subject which the prominent zoologist examined in detail for the previous
Labour government, finding that a cull was not likely to solve the
problem.

He told the Guardian: “I would say don’t be so focused on killing badgers
(as a way of controlling the disease) but go back and look at all the
policy options.”

Hancock has opposed both windfarms and new housing developments, while Rudd has raised her constituents safety fears about the Dungeness nuclear power plant in her constituency. Rudd, whose represents the coastal constituency of Hastings and Rye, has been praised by campaigners for supporting sustainable fishing and has raised questions about how government energy efficiency programmes would help social housing.

The Renewable Energy Association said it looked forward to working with Truss, Hancock and Rudd. The trade body’s chief executive, Dr Nina Skorupska, said of the outgoing Greg Barker, who Rudd replaces: “Not only did he bring stability to the department, he also brought passion and enthusiasm.”

Truss, Hancock and Rudd appear not to have made any public statements about climate change.