"Green" policies are destroying this country
Comments
-
-
-
-
-
-
Advertisement
-
-
-
-
-
-
Advertisement
-
There is a saying that originated in Asia: No food, one problem. Lots of food, many problems. Right now, and for the next few years, day to day survival will be the major concern for most of us: Cost of living: More than a million people in Ireland struggling to make ends meet. As you can see from the protests the lefts dalliance with ‘bourgeois’ environmentalism has come to an end.
The GMB, which is affiliated to the Labour Party and has 460,000 members, represents the majority of workers at the UK’s nuclear power stations, such as Hinkley Point, Sellafield and Dungeness.
Smith said that the government had wasted “years on financial engineering rather than investing in our energy infrastructure”. “And now we are going to lose electricity generating capacity in the next few years,” he added, pointing out that Britain’s nuclear power stations, with the exception of Hinkley Point, which is under construction, and Sizewell B, are expected to be offline by 2030.
“And the question, therefore, is where is the electricity going to come from? We cannot do it by renewables and we cannot rely on energy imports. Norway’s not going to be exporting electricity this winter and neither is France. If we have a ‘beast from the east’ – cold weather with no wind – we’re going to have massive problems in the UK in terms of electricity generation. Nobody has woken up to what is coming around the corner.”
In the UK, even before the war happened they were having problems with diesel supply.
Britain relied on net imports to cover almost 40% of its distillate consumption in 2021. Russia was the single largest source, accounting for 33% of all distillate imports and 17% of total consumption.
Diesel imports from Russia can be substituted relatively easily from other sources since the volumes involved are not large on a global scale.
Britain has announced it will wind down Russian imports over the course of 2022 ("U.K. to phase out Russian oil imports", BEIS, March 8).
But there is not enough diesel and gas oil available from other sources for all European countries to make the same substitution at the same time.
Transport run on electricity?? The UK has been de-industrialising, shutting down coal generation and nuclear and relying on gas and inter-connectors.
Even before the war, this was becoming apparent.
Intermittency is expensive
Wind and solar farms do not pay for the costs of the intermittency they cause. They therefore have little incentive to minimise them. It is a nonsense to compare the costs of wind with the costs of, say, gas or nuclear without including the back-up costs for wind necessitated by the intermittency. As set out in the Cost of Energy Review, the right answer is that every generator should have to bid their Equivalent Firm Power (EFP) cost into the system operator. That is the true system cost, and if it were reflected in the EFP bids, it would tell a very different story about the costs of offshore wind. It would also be a great incentive to do something about it.
Now that wind makes up a much bigger share of total capacity, this really matters – and it needs a much bigger investment in back-up capacity. The economics of that back-up capacity is seriously impaired by the wind at times producing wholesale prices of zero – when the wind is blowing well – and very high prices when it is not. In the old fossil-fuel and nuclear system, total capacity requirements were of the order of 70–80GW. For a system where wind sometimes can produce all the energy demanded and sometimes very little, that firm power capacity needs to remain in place, plus the wind turbines too. We need a great deal more capacity to meet any given demand. That has to paid for by someone.
In the current energy crisis, it is this intermittency that has been a major factor in shaping the huge impact of a gas price spike. Low wind has to be taken into account. 2021 was a year with exceptionally low wind. The worry comes in winter, with low wind, high pressure, and cold air over Northern Europe.
While Green Party politicians and climate NGOs and activists are not entirely to blame for the unfolding crisis, their dishonesty may well cost them dear anyway. The future has arrived, and the eco-austerity is only just beginning, wind turbines will do nothing, to lower the cost of living.
Net Zero means we are paying for the destruction of our economy and society in pursuit of an unachievable and pointless policy.
6 -
-
-
-
-
-
One of the things the Greenies on here like to do is to poo-pah either nukes or LNG on the basis that we're so far down the road on renewables that those other technologies are either too late, or would take too long to implement, or are unnecessary because we are so close to renewable self-sufficiency. I thought it would be instructive to look at how badly we've already missed previous targets for wind energy and are likely to continue doing so. (Not that I mind the targets being missed as I think the high cost of renewables is utterly destructive to the economy).
Back in 2011 the SEAI produced this graph (cf. SEAI Wind Energy Roadmap 2011):
Looking at the graph and other details from the report:
- Electricity consumption to exceed 30,000 GWh around 2020.
- 20,000 GWh generated by wind power around 2022 comprised of onshore and fixed-foundation offshore.
- Cost of onshore wind by 2025 around €66 per MWh. Cost of offshore wind projected to be €140 per MWh.
- Electricity generation from wind to exceed demand by around 2028, leading to an export-driven market.
- 500 MW of offshore capacity installed by 2020 and 4,500 GW by 2030.
- 500 MW East-West interconnector by 2012, further Irish-UK 500 MW interconnector by 2018, further 2000 MW Ireland-UK and Ireland-EU interconnectors by 2030 and beyond.
How are we doing so far?
- The consumption estimate was spot on: we passed the 30,000 GWh mark in 2020 as predicted. (Slightly at odds with CSO figures which give 28,500 GWh for 2021, but in the ballpark).
- We missed the projected generation target for 2022 by a mile. While the official SEAI report even for 2021 won't be produced until the end of this year, unofficially the number comes in at less than 10,000 GWh (down from the 2020 figure due to a bad wind year). After a little over ten years we look to be at least five years behind schedule.
- We missed the cost estimate by a mile. Onshore wind in 2022 has a strike price 50% greater than what was predicted for 2025. You'd like to be able to say costs are still dropping ... but they're not: they're up 30% in the last two years. No estimate for offshore wind yet, first auction might be held before end 2022.
- Does anyone think we have a ghost of a chance of exporting excess electricity by 2028? Will come back to this below.
- No new offshore wind was installed by 2020, and there's reason to believe the 2030 targets are in considerable trouble.
- The East-West IC was on schedule (not surprising since it was only 12 months away in 2011). Second UK interconnector is at least six years behind schedule (more below). The first EU IC, the 700 MW Celtic Interconnector to France, obtained its licenses in 2022 and construction planned from late 2022 to 2026.
The delayed UK IC is the privately funded Greenlink interconnector from Wexford to Pembrokeshire. Years of consultations, impact assessments and delays with required new legislation set it back. The foreshore license application was finally made in August 2019 with construction to commence 2020 and be fully operational in 2023. Final go-ahead actually happened in April 2022, with construction to start 2023 and operations by end of 2024 (which sounds ambitious compared to the original construction schedule).
The biggest delay looks to be the offshore wind sector. This has been a planning disaster which has driven two of the biggest external investors from the market. Wind energy generation was supposed to exceed demand by around 2028, leading SEAI to declare that "a comparison of electricity demand and wind generation potential shows the capacity for Ireland’s wind market to become export driven in the 2020–2030 timeframe". At the time storage wasn't really a glint in anyone's eye and there was no mention of a hydrogen economy (that being a later dose of hopium by Eamon Ryan). Hopes were pinned on the interconnectors which would give a "great capacity for Ireland to export excess wind energy in the 2020 – 2030 timeframe."
Back in 2019 the ESB conceived a new "green energy hub" for Moneypoint. They announced it in April 2021 with a poncy name reminiscent of the most pretentious hotels -- "Green Atlantic@Moneypoint". It was to include a synchronous compensator to facilitate renewables, a manufacturing site for floating offshore wind turbines, and a green hydrogen production facility. They were being partnered by Equinor, who were also going to be involved in two offshore farms totalling 1.4 GW off Clare and Kerry -- nearly 30% of the 2030 offshore capacity target. Equinor pulled out in November 2021, citing planning and regulatory barriers.
"A spokesperson for Equinor ... said that based on the totality of its analysis it had decided that other geographies are more interesting or promising than Ireland. The spokesman acknowledged that the regulatory process is part of the totality of the decision."
At the same time as Equinor were withdrawing from the Irish market, Shell announced that it had bought a 51% share in the Western Star 1.3 GW floating offshore wind farm off Kilkee. Shell were also involved in the 1.3 GW Emerald offshore wind farm in Cork. This week, Shell pulled out of Ireland saying it "was leaving Ireland to focus its efforts on countries with more accommodating legislative frameworks".
Ironically this was shortly after Eamon Ryan announced an increase in the 2030 target for offshore wind from 5 GW to 7 GW. You can't say he's not keen (some would say rabid). But what would we actually do with all that wind in the unlikely event it got built by 2030? Hydrogen is still a distant hope. As we've seen, wind power fluctuates from zero (no matter how much of it is installed) to something approaching nameplate capacity. We have to pay for fossil fuel backup for the times the wind doesn't blow. We also have to pay for the grid infrastructure, connectors, storage and/or hydrogen generation when the wind does blow.
Do we have to pay for wind power when the wind does blow but there's too much of it to use? This situation will be facing us if ever the nameplate capacity exceeds system demand. It's often been claimed on here that we will sell excess electricity over the new interconnectors. (I'm always intrigued by who "we" is supposed to be -- it's as if the Greenies are claiming that Ireland Inc. will be the beneficiary of such sales, as opposed to the private venture vultures who fund wind farms).
Just as buying power over an interconnector will be subject to availability at the other end, selling it will be subject to demand. If there's no demand then the electricity is worthless ... worthless to us that is, the wind generator will still have to be paid curtailment charges. Up to now, the grid operator has only paid compensation for grid constraints, where some physical problem or limitation on the grid prevents the dispatch of available wind power. From 2024 it will have to start paying curtailment fees as well. Just one more way the tax payer will get stuffed multiple times over for renewable electricity.
To summarise: wind capacity is way behind its 2011 schedule, prices are way higher than forecast, interconnectors are years behind schedule, licensing and permitting delays have crippled projects and caused investors to pull out. If the schedule has already slipped at least six years in the last ten years, why should we have any confidence in the plan? Are we going to actually have generating capacity to power all the proposed EVs and heat pumps? The only saving grace is that those will probably be a mile behind schedule too. Sounds like a classic Irish botch job on all fronts which will leave nobody happy -- the Greenies will be frustrated about the delay, the rest of us horrified by the waste and ineffectiveness.
7 -
-
-
-
Advertisement
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Advertisement
-
![[Deleted User]](/applications/dashboard/design/images/defaulticon.png)
