Madness of our worship of wind: Matt Ridley
By Paul Homewood
A good round up by Matt Ridley:
Take a wild guess at how much of the UK’s total primary demand for energy was supplied by wind power in 2020.
Half? 30 per cent? No, in fact, it was less than 4 per cent.
That’s right, all those vast wind farms in the North Sea, or disfiguring the hills of Wales and Scotland, give us little more than one-thirtieth of the energy we need to light and heat our homes, power our businesses or move our cars and trains.
Just think what this country and its seas would look like if we relied on wind for one-third or half of our energy needs.
Last week, Government ministers were considering lowering people’s energy bills if they live close to onshore wind turbines.
They’re also considering relaxing the rules so that onshore wind farms no longer need the backing of local communities and councils in order to get planning permission.
This will give wind farms an easier ride through the planning process than new housing — or shale gas drilling sites.
More importantly, it means further privileging an industry that has cost a fortune, wrecked green and pleasant landscapes and made us dependent on the weather for our energy needs — and thus more wedded to natural gas as a back-up.
The wind industry has already been fattened on subsidies of more than £6billion a year (paid for out of green levies on your electricity bills), it has privileged access to the grid and is paid extra compensation when the wind blows too strongly and the grid cannot cope with the energy output.
Full story here.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Here’s food for thought. How long before this sort of case is heard, and wins, here in UK? Would drive a coach and horses through onshore wind viability.
https://joannenova.com.au/2022/03/victorian-windfarm-loses-court-case-on-noise-must-turn-off-turbines-at-night/
‘Victorian windfarm loses court case on noise, must turn off turbines at night!
In the Victorian Supreme Court a judge has just ordered that the Bald Hills Wind farm must turn off at night time. After seven years of pain and suffering, two households living nearby will finally get night time relief and some payments of $92,000 and $168,000.’
“The wind farm noise has been a common law nuisance at both properties.”
‘This could change everything. These industrial plants close to homes just became even less profitable because they can’t operate at night. They also need to pay damages to people affected by the noise, and do more maintenance to reduce noise — like repairing gear boxes more often, and they may have to pay to make changes at homes nearby to ameliorate the nuisance, or pay compensation. Many properties near the towers have abandoned plans to build new houses there.’
More details in the full article.
Great reference . . . In time, The Big Green Propaganda Machine will be defeated by it’s own Ignorance and Misinformation ! Some notes . . .
Wind Turbines, are The Ultimate in Embedded Costs and Environmental Destruction. Each one weighs about 1,688 tons (equivalent to 23 houses) and they contain 1,300 tons of concrete and 295 tons of steel for the masts (Concrete and Steel = 15% Global CO2). 3.5 tons of copper, 48 tons of iron, 24 tons of fiberglass Then there are the rare earth minerals . . . 800 lbs. of neodymium-boron per turbine, praseodymium, and dysprosium. The leaching into the environment from tailings ponds, the radiation released into the environment and the mining of these minerals are all Embedded Costs. Where are all the calculations for all of these in The Environmental reports? Each blade weighs 81,000 pounds and will last about 15 to 20 years, then, it must be replaced. Oh, we cannot recycle used blades yet either! That is why we see them lying on the ground at wind farms after they have been replaced. What about the coal burned and electricity used at all the production facilities processing these essential components and the CO2 generated during their production? Somehow is this ‘Green Magic’ without pollution, because it will be used to produce Green Energy? Not likely! It all gets brushed under the ‘Big Green Rug’ and seems irrelevant because ‘It’s for a Good Cause’ . . . Absolutely NOT !!
From . . .
https://www.academia.edu/71023588/Batteries_Renewable_Energy_and_EV_s_The_Ultimate_in_Environmental_Destruction
Also the, presumably, petroleum based lubricants for them.
The absolute worst is the 800 lbs of Neo Dymium Boron (rare earth magnets) these were invented in the USA by general Dynamics in 1983 and production was banned by the EPA in 1989 because of excess Radiation in the tailings pond. That pond today is in Mongolia where 90% of global production takes place. Even the BBC and Al Jazeera did stories on this . . . funny how soon they forget . . . See Page 9 . . .
https://www.academia.edu/73548362/Electric_Cars_Burn_31_More_Energy_than_Gas_Cars_Revised_
According to Gridwatch (at 10:15am) the UK’s remaining Coal fired power stations are producing TWELVE TIMES more power than all those useless turbines – 0.15GW versus 1.80GW…
And at 1900.40 GMT Wind has “recovered” to 2%!
The UK electricity is 70.5% supplied by BURNING CARBON (not allowing for the 3% from -mostly- coal fired Netherlands interconnection. Imports are 8.65%
An outstanding “success”.
We are into the 8th day of less than around 1-2GW of Grid connected Wind power being supplied (currently < 200MW!). By my calculations in order to store enough wind power generated electrical energy to have provided a constant 5GW (same as Nuclear has prpvided) through these last 8 days….. would require 50,000,000 EVs based on 20KWh (roughly a 1/3 of total battery capacity) reserved to provide V2G storage.
As at this moment (1029 BST) wind is providing precisely 0% of a 36.5GW demand!
https://gridwatch.co.uk/?oldgw=
Unbelievable!
Take a screenshot of it for future reference.
And here is the weather system responsible for this.
Ventusky 28Mar2022
Notice all the Saharan dust seen on WorldView being transported north on 22nd March.
All part of the meridional weather process that will continue for the next 30 years during this stage of the natural 60-year climate cycle.
Do wind farms last for 30 years?
Phillip B
You can download Gridwatch Data (and make a donation) at the website. The data goes back to the site’s start 13 May 2011. Data comes as a csv file and is easy to graph and analyse in Excel. There is a little bit of cleaning needed as some records have all zeroes or missing fields. You can either remove a whole row of data when the majority of fields are zero/empty or for a single field take the average of a couple of readings before and a couple of readings after, readings are taken at 5 minute intervals so an average won’t be that far out.
The Ventusky site suggested by Philip M., shows air pressure in inches of Mercury (Hg); currently 30.1 inches. The Southern Ocean has several Low Pressure systems at 28.4 inches. The Arctic is shown as deep purple, High Pressure.
Zoom out to a world view and the map is very colorful.
”
As at this moment (1029 BST) wind is providing precisely 0% of a 36.5GW demand!
”
If that doesn’t include input energy to the wind turbines then the wind turbines were a net drain on the grid. Input electrical energy during low wind includes rotating the shaft to prevent damage to the shaft, forced lubrication, heating, control systems etc.
Our friends make a lot of noise when wind generation sets a new record (as it surely will every year, since the nominal capacity is going up all the time). When it is useless for a week, they say nothing.
The problem Paul is that you personally are branded as a Climate Change denier with no scientific training in meteorology or in climate science. As a consequence no one of importance reads your blog even when you are re-publishing another’s factual article.
You need to find someone not tarred as a climate denier with a large following on Twitter and get THEM to re-post Matt’s article.
Anybody who dissents from the official line that the science is settled and that we have a climate emergency or a climate crisis and it is all our fault is branded as a climate change denier. It does not matter what your qualifications are.
I consider it a badge of honour.
Me too!!
Everyone who recognises this as a threat to the UK should contribute. Even if their reach only extends across the garden fence!
Paul could ask Great Doomberg to post the article. Or how about Prince Charles? Or David Azzaboza. None of these people have formal meteorology qualifications, but that’s no obstacle to them sprinkling climate din around in public.
And that’s without even getting into the question of what is a “climate qualification”? There was a happier time when University had sleepy little Geography Faculties. Nobody had even thought about having a Climate Faculty.
Today, we have many University departments which could be rightly called the “Faculty of the Average Of Weather”, populated by people who like to study averages of stuff, and claim something unusual is going to happen 100 years from now. This allows them to call themselves “climate scientists” and tell us how to run our energy system.
Our 11,000 metered turbines are generating at just 0.14GW from 27.33GW capacity at this very moment.
https://winderful.uk
Yet when foolish Boris talks about wind farms he would claim them as being (in this case) 27GW power stations!
I recall reading aDutch based article a while back where the chap had worked out that all of Holland and the sea around it would have to be covered in turbines if the dutch choose to use only wind as their chosen method.whilst I like the idea for say a remote offgrid site R E just doesn’t scale up to national level whichever way you look at it.
Exactly the same applies to solar.
Huge farm being built near me South Shropshire, with no local “comment”, taking away a huge chunk of valuable farm land!!!
This is what happens when a young, ignorant greenie has the ear (and other anatomical protuberances) of an old, ignorant Prime Minister
Anthem for a dispatchable power station
No wind, no rain
Nor winter’s cold
Can’t stop me baby
No no baby
Cause you are my goal
If you’re ever in trouble
I’ll be there on the double
Just send for me
Ain’t no turbine high enough…
The lull is long
Not a many a winding turn
That leads prices to who knows where
Who knows where
But I’m strong
Strong enough to carry him
He ain’t heavy, he’s my intermittent brother
So on we go
His unreliability is of my concern
No burden is he to bear
We’ll get there
For I know
He would not encumber me
He ain’t heavy, he’s my intermittent brother
‘and thus more wedded to natural gas as a back-up’
Being backup to wind isn’t much of a business plan.
Apparently, it has not occurred to these “green” energy seekers that they cannot construct and put in place any wind turbine or solar panel “farms” without using vehicles that require fossil fuels for transportation? That process makes any journey to a net-zero carbon future harder than it already is. Even electric vehicles need transportation during and after they are built.
That puts me in mind of a current TV add for a Skalectric Skoda.
At the bottom of the screen it says “requires an electric supply to charge this vehicle”
I was listening to the TV News at lunchtime.
The subject of rising enegy bills and in particularly standing charges were discussed. These charges are based on the cost of getting electricity to the customer. Apparently the charge in Liverpool is five times that of London.
This struck me as odd. Most electricity is generated outside London (and South East for that matter). Just one example Onshore wind is 14GW installed of that 8GW in Scotland. Most offshore wind is around the East and South Coast of England but that can’t be cheap to get anywhere. There don’t seem to be many Gas Power Stations in the South East either.
The population of London and The South East is about two and a half that of the North West of England.
So I cannot see any justification for the diferrence in standing charges.
The standing charge reflects the costs of distribution together with some unspecified green levies and tariffs according to a BBC ceefax article today.
Southern Scotland was included in the list of areas singled out for the largest increases.
The costs of distribution in S Scotland are High due to low investment and low tech last century methods employed.
High Green levies and distribution costs here, to pay for the transmission of wind power to London and the SE through S Scotland on new tech pylons and associated infrastructure, whilst providing the local area with early 20C infrastructure fed through overhead transmission prone to frequent storm damage, is arse backwards viewed from anywhere other than Westminster.
Can’t wait to vote in May
Pray tell me who will you vote for?
Not that idiot who cannot tell what a woman is ?
It’s a whole bunch more complicated. As usual, OFGEM makes it almost impossible to find a true up to date picture of how their changes in the charging methodology affect ordinary customers. Given that they have already changed their minds several times on the timing of at least some of the new schemes they really ought to do better. Here’s what they said when they first “made their mind up”
On average, households will pay less than today and non-domestic consumers will pay more. Consumers who currently benefit from reduced contributions because they have on-site generation which has reduced their contribution to the existing system, without a corresponding reduction in system costs, will pay more on average. Those that haven’t taken such action will on average pay less.
By changing the charging basis to a fixed approach, this means almost all consumers will face a different level of charges than at present. On average this means, those towards the top of the charging bands will pay less than today, and those at the bottom of the charging bands will pay more. However, those facing an initial increase will benefit from the longer term savings from our proposed changes.
Most domestic consumers will save as a result of the reform to fixed charges, with a typical household seeing a £5/year reduction in their bill. However, some households who use the least electricity could face a typical annual increase of between £2 and £22 a year when these changes fully come into effect in 2022.
What this hides is a big switch from charges per kWh to charges per day to cover distribution and transmission network costs. Those costs have of course been rising, and will carry on rising as we pursue more renewables and more electrification e.g. for EVs. Those beefier cables have to be paid for!
Glad to here some attention being paid to how much the standing charges are going up rather than all the blame being just swept under the price of energy banner. My supplier just says it down to OFGEM to set charges they only pass through the costs which i kinda get but there should be more explanation. In my council tax bill they give some reasonable breakdown for instance telling me policing costs are going up because they are taking on more officers on energy costs we get nothing and just a blank wall when you try and find out.
Wind power only makes sense in terms of balance-of-payments and security (reduced gas imports), because very few countries have a windy North Sea, and UK emissions are a mere 1%. There is no credible we-can-do-it-so-can-you argument. Naturally there is no mention of this fact by the Big Green Marketing department, or by the lapdogs in the MSM.
It will be fun to watch the response to solar-panels-in-space, which featured in the news over the weekend. There has to be some enthusiasm from Big Green, but not too much, for fear of damaging the income stream from wind farms.
There is no evidence that wind has resulted in lower gas imports. It has supplanted baseload generation in the mix, but left gas use unchanged, while also giving rise to more electricity imports. Before wind became important we had the flexibility to back out gas by using more coal. Now we don’t have the coal capacity to do that. See the history in this chart:
https://image.vuukle.com/9ffc6604-feed-474e-a82d-c2de2f561502-453d8b9d-b316-4868-b1a8-ee4f302d0b0f
Another interesting chart, thanks. I had not realised how much oil was being used for power generation (about 10% over the last few years).
Of course oil at least is storable and can be bought when the market price is low. I think that high efficiency aero-derivative gas turbines burning gas oil would be the ideal back up for short term power dips caused by the wind-white-elephants.
The oil use is tiny – it’s the bright red, not the dark red for imports. The last time there was heavy oil use really was during the miners’ strike.
Francis Menton (of Manhattan Contrarian) published this excellent article yesterday:
‘The people promising us “Net Zero” have no clue about the energy storage problem (https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/).
So what is it that powers the wet dreams of the green numpties and the politicians who are in thrall to this ‘net zero’ nonsense? Because it certainly isn’t reality.
I look at it – UK energy policy from another direction and then ask a question,
Q. If say an enemy, a saboteur required to put a nation into the economic dustbin, what would they encourage them to do?
A. halt plentiful and cheap energy and install the UK blackout policy.
How much do ‘our’ politicians hate this nation, greatly and the communists/green lobby laugh and the investment bankers with them, Russia and china too.
“How much do ‘our’ politicians hate this nation”
If you visit some of the right wing US sites & blogs you’ll find the same question being asked. And (like us) they are faced with a governing party and and an utterly useless opposition – often referred to as “The Uniparty”. The old saying “It doesn’t matter who you vote for, the government always gets in” is never more true, but the REAL government is the civil service – who have their own agenda, and to hell with the voters who pay their (ample) wages & pensions…
DW: Problem is that we have evolved into a culture whereuin our leaders and governors have no scientific credentials whatsoever. Even their so-called scientific advisers have very ropey qualifications – so there is no hope, really, is there?
I’ve wondered about this very subject for a while now. EVERYTHING in this country is wrong. Every major policy is anti-UK. Everything is upside down or back-to-front. We’re put last in our own land too often.
Energy, immigration, economic policy, Brexit. All out of whack. Nothing is working properly.
Big industries decimated and moved abroad to NO advantage to the planet whatsoever.
Out of control immigration for 20 years. Literally millions came here, many from deeply unpleasant regions of the world. Society is fractured.
Look at the Channel scandal. 25k last year and on target for 3 times that this year. Potentially 100k illegals in just two years. Government talk plenty but do absolutely nothing. Cost: billions. Nobody voted for this.
Brexit not delivered. NO economic advantage since May bound us into non-regression clauses. Economic independence ruined by our own 5th column from within. NI traduced. Where’s the UK fishing fleet? France! . There’s too many coincidences.
Democracy lies in ruins; 8 and 6 years on Scottish IndyRef and Brexit results have NOT been accepted by the losers. Supreme Court made up its own judgement to suit their obvious agenda. (The case was non-justiciable and should’ve been thrown out in 10 seconds flat. Instead they found unanimously against our own government. YCNMIU)
Energy / gas independence revealed to have been wrecked by Russian money, collaborative activists and NGO groups and a compliant government. Government action against such imposters? Zero, bar the ongoing ban of fracking! Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition? MIA.
ALL entirely deliberate
We’ve been at economic warfare with China for years – whether we’ve noticed or not. Covid was deliberate; almost certainly bio-warfare. Response? Just shut up and take the jab.
Culture wars is destroying our history and almost all established protocols are under threat. Police, courts and government (again) do almost nothing. Dare to complain, you’re a racist.
Wrecking our energy system would be the greatest way of bringing down this country without a shot being fired or any direct suspicions falling on any such perpetrators. All self-inflicted through our elected parliament. How handy.
How can all these policies (and many more not mentioned) all be falling one way so comprehensively against our country, by random chance?
!!!!! and then some !!!
Bevause the elites across the West are largely identical – progressive, big state, anti-markets, high regulation, pro-immigration, pro-diversity and all that nonsense. Which part of the elites fought for the Brexit result to be honoured? Not one part.
Nowhere in the West is a democracy because choice has been made not just impossible but evil.
CR: Especially not mentioned are health care and old age care. All broken but no sense of urgency about any of it. Just heard a grandmother at my local dentists asking urgently for an appointment for her seven year old grandchild and being told the only available would be in September and would be private costing £90. That’s just for a check up – presumably any treatment would be more.
Great summery Red.
Do you think it all started with a denial of God, and our corrupted education system ably abetted by the Lying Media?
Funnily enough my computer printed Mafia in place of Media – is it telling me something?
What the Mail don’t tell us is the obsession with wind and driving coal off the system means to cover the power needed nearly 40% of gas being used in the UK today is running CCGTs. This is well below what UK can provide itself these days so we are locked in to world prices. We need keep what coal we have left open and use our resources as well as getting with Sizewell C now.
An excellent paper from Matt,and to Athelstan I will say that I agree with you entirely.
This Govt. of ours is sick and dangerous.The malicious persecution of the poor,old and cold is indefensible.
Goodbye Boris.
An interesting development- the EU are now suing our government for subsidising our off shore wind industry. Time will tell if this proves to be silver lining https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1587601/EU-green-subsidies-UK-Brexit-row
Today Tuesday 29 March UK wind enters its eighth day of near zero electricity production, beaten by coal every day. I am complaining to the BBC for lying by omission : after Ukraine, energy supply and cost is the Big Story. Why no mention? And emailed my MP, poor love.
Much, entirely desrved, condemnation of wind power but not too many suggestions about how we are going to resolve what really is a major energy crisis which keeps getting kicked down the road. If we can just put fracking to one side, where is our enegy going to come from? Great that North Sea exploitation is being supported but it is a mature source and new finds will be smaller, more expensive and, basically, rarer. Nuclear is never going to provide the answer as is being demonstrated at Sizewell. Solar – a non-starter. LNG great but over-subsctribed. Fusion – far in the future. What is left?
Financial ruin for UK plc, log burners for the rest of us:-)
Yes, JBW – already facing the former – and already have the latter installed. (And absolutely brilliant – one bright aspect of the wretched Ash Die-back😱)
Two heartening stories about windmills come to mind.
Outside my window in St Andrews Bay in the “Saudi Arabia” of wind power in Mrs Sturg-ons Scotland, a giant array of bird choppers are being installed.
A few weeks ago the Irish contractors who were doing the cable hook up to the land sub station went belly up.
This week an outfit in Germany called Naturschutzbund Deutschland (NARU) – no, not the Pacific island, protested vehemently against the installation of a ‘Wind Park’ in the Grimm Brothers fairy tale forest which would destroy thousands of acres of mature trees.
This in country where the Green Monster was calved with all its Nazi connotations.
Perhaps there is going to be a late awakening.
Breath hold don’t your…. rearrange into a common phrase or saying…..
Too much of (taxpayer’s) cash on offer.
Teat-sucking b****ards.