From the Daily Skeptic
Chris Morrison
The cat finally spilled the beans. It is planned that by 2030, 95% of the UK's electricity will come from so-called green energy, 5% of which will come from natural gas. The illusion that electricity can be stored on a large scale to support unreliable renewable energy has not emerged in recent research. guardian Interview with Fintan Slye, head of the National Energy System Operator (NESO). “A large number of power plants will continue to be stored for the cold, dreary, windless winter, but they will have limited operating hours,” said Sly, whose business was recently nationalized and is responsible for balancing supply and generation.
His comments both set the record straight and stoked fear. It has been clear for some time that intermittent breezes and sunshine do not have mass support, although the topic is rarely discussed in mainstream media and political circles. If all life in the UK doesn't want to come to a standstill during windless winter freezes, stockpiling gas power is the only game in town. But putting an entire fleet of gas turbines on standby would cost a lot of money, sending electricity prices soaring. Plans to undermine Britain's own gas and oil industry will do little to help future procurement and pricing, let alone national security.
Britain's electricity prices are already the highest in the developed world, and doubling, tripling or quadrupling them would help destroy what's left of industry and cause people's living standards to plummet. As always, with the green crackdown going crazy, the poorest in society will be hit hardest. Many people will not have access to the basic necessities they have always taken for granted, such as light, heat, refrigeration, cooking facilities and electronics to enter the online world.
A common fantasy can be found in guardian article. Sly points out: “Conversely, the UK will one day be able to generate far more renewable energy than it can use or store, so more electricity may be exported to neighboring countries.” But of course, the weather doesn’t stop at national borders. Nearby countries are likely to experience similar windy conditions and as everyone tries to offload energy, the prices on offer will drop like a stone to zero.
In the UK, National Grid was forced to pay renewable energy operators to stop producing energy. Last year, nearly £1 billion was paid in “restrictive” payments. Notably, this is not far off from the amount saved by the recent removal of winter fuel subsidies for pensioners. But these amounts are chicken feed compared with the overall subsidies paid to renewable energy players, adding more than £12 billion to consumers' annual fuel bills. The more renewable generation capacity there is, the more binding payments and subsidies are likely to increase. With such a backlash, it's no surprise that Dale Vince, the boss of Ecotricity, which runs onshore windmills, recently donated £5m to boost Labour's electoral chances.
Mad Miliband's grid contribution is likely to be 75-80% from breezes and beams. Once again, we must be obliged guardian Thank you for discussing this subject in such detail and for pointing out so vividly the further difficulties that may arise when the winds weaken during the dark 18 hours of winter. Basically, the price went up, actually spiked 20 times. March 2023, guardian Reports say the grid is forced to buy natural gas to generate electricity at a price of £1,950 per megawatt hour (MWh) during cold spells with no wind. The usual price is around £100 MWh. An industry source reportedly said the price of procuring electricity from natural gas peaking plants was “surprising”. Vitol is the world's largest oil trader and has a deep understanding of how to ensure optimal market-determined rates. At the time it proposed a price of £5,750 per megawatt hour, although an offer from its Rye House subsidiary was not accepted.
In an article published Manhattan bucks the trendFrancis Menton discusses the “catastrophic economics” of trying to power the grid with 100% intermittent renewable energy. This move inevitably leads to a significant increase in the actual price of electricity that consumers have to pay. But he didn't rely solely on theoretical calculations. “In jurisdictions that have successfully increased renewable energy generation to around 30% of total electricity supply [Britain hit around 34% in 2023]the result is that electricity prices for consumers have roughly tripled,” he said. Furthermore, he continued: “As the share of electricity generated from renewable sources increases, consumer price increases accelerate.”
In his social media blockbuster Climate: The MovieAccording to Martin Durkin, it tells the story of how a strange environmental panic grew into a powerful global industry. “Climate change is a fabricated fear driven by self-interest and snobbery, cynically driven by parasitic, publicly funded institutions hungry for power and money,” he charged. He couldn’t have summed up command and control net zero better. Project driving force. Deliberately raising energy prices through the “decarbonisation” of the UK grid by 2030 is just one of the many economic and social changes planned by New Labour's hegemony.
Chris Morrison is daily skepticof Environment editor.
Relevant
