Letters / Expensive white elephant
SECRETARY of State for Energy and Climate Change Ed Davey is in Shetland this week promoting the Lib Dems’ vision of Britain as a pin cushion of titanic rotating scythes in which wealthy landowners and developers will be “rolling in it” ever more deeply at energy consumers’ and taxpayers’ expense.
The reason for this policy, ostensibly, is the imperative of “tackling climate change” to prevent the world’s ice caps from melting over the next thousand years and thus save the world, in particular, places like the Maldives, Tuvalu and Bangladesh from sinking, Atlantis-like, beneath the waves.
Mr Davey, unlike the mis-maligned King Canute, actually believes he can hold back the rising seas by using atmospheric carbon dioxide levels as a thermostat to regulate global temperature to which goal he will insist we deploy wind farms all over the country to reduce emissions. However his plan is badly flawed.
Setting aside the fact that China’s carbon dioxide emissions increase annually by more than Britain’s entire annual emissions, studies in countries such as Ireland and Holland which have large scale wind power development have shown that due to the need to run fossil fuel plant inefficiently to cover the intermittent nature of wind, overall carbon dioxide savings are derisory (about 4 percent of rated capacity) and if wind power exceeds 20 percent of total grid capacity, savings may actually be negative i.e. more carbon dioxide would be emitted overall than if there were no wind generation at all!
Similar principles apply to carbon dioxide savings achievable from any form of intermittent renewable energy, especially where it is unpredictable e.g. solar power, wave power.
Another drawback is that increasing concentrations of wind power cause electricity grid instability leading UK Regulator Ofgem to warn of possible major blackouts by 2020. This is already recognised as a grave risk in Germany which has much more wind power than the UK. We need to learn from others’ mistakes, not repeat them.
Finally, wind power requires large hidden subsidies known as Renewable Obligation Certificates, a system which “obliges” utilities to buy wind power at roughly twice and three times the price of coal generation for onshore and offshore wind, respectively. The cost of this is passed directly on to consumers’ bills.
Some blame the rising gas price for high prices but why is the gas price so high? Because we currently have to import some gas from Europe, mostly from Norway and Europe in turn is forced to import from Russia’s state monopoly Gazprom. Prices have been contractually linked to the price of oil so if oil gets dearer we pay more for gas, irrespective of how much is available.
Like Charles Dickens’ character Wilkins Micawber, we must hope that “something will turn up” and indeed, salvation is at hand for the price of gas in the US is a third that in the UK, thanks to its burgeoning shale gas industry and – lo and behold – large shale gas resources have also been discovered in Britain and the EU.
Sadly, the shale gas industry is under attack from an unholy alliance of green advocacy groups, Gazprom and politicians in a vain attempt to discredit it, stymie development and save political face, ultimately, by helping to sustain the price link to oil.
A successful UK shale gas industry would, of course, leave Mr Davey’s wind power policy exposed as an expensive white elephant and indeed, Mr Davey is keeping the brakes on development thus ensuring gas and electricity prices for domestic and industrial consumers remain high.
As recently as today in a speech to the Gas Tech Conference Mr Davey claimed to be “all for” advancing shale gas development but declined to give consent for drilling, saying
“I make no apology for being a little more patient. Questions about regulatory oversight and the involvement of communities need to be answered rather than simply dismissed” (Reuters).
Perhaps you should apologise, Mr Davey, to those out of work and in fuel poverty as a result of your policies.
Mr Davey testified on 20th June at the Scottish Parliament’s Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee investigation of Scotland’s renewable energy targets, notably, that of meeting 100% of its own electricity from so-called “renewable” sources by 2020; this from the BBC.
“UK Energy Secretary Ed Davey told the Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee fuel bills would rise substantially in Scotland if it became independent.“
He said, as a result of an independent Scotland, “There is no doubt there would be increases in energy bills in Scotland, not in pence and pounds but in tens of pounds.” This was because Scottish renewable energy is subsidised by consumers throughout the UK.
Climate change was “too dangerous” for any government to hitch their wagon to only renewable technology…..there should be a mix of technologies, including nuclear.” http://news.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/hi/scotland/newsid_9729000/9729247.stm
Mr Davey didn’t actually say “watch my lips” however I heard him say (associated video) “there will be no public subsidy for nuclear.” How does that square with the ongoing negotiations regarding the price to be paid for energy from EdF’s proposed new nuclear power station at Hinckley Point?
As for increasing carbon dioxide reduction targets beyond 2020 Mr Davey would do well to note the recent comments by EU Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger reported in the Financial Times “Deutschland” edition, translated at http://www.thegwpf.org/eu-energy-commissioner-warns-against-new-climate-targets/ or the original version in German at http://www.ftd.de/politik/europa/:berliner-brandrede-oettinger-und-das-ende-von-nokia/70099884.html
Oettinger fears loss of competitiveness for EU industry due to excessive energy costs and called on the EU Commission to adopt an industrial objective of raising manufacturing’s contribution to EU GDP from 18 to 20 percent by 2020 and to ditch plans to increase emission reduction targets post-2020.
Meanwhile those in fuel poverty are left to reflect on Micawber’s immortal words, “Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.”
John Tulloch
Lyndon
Arrochar
G83 7AG
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