The Case Against Offshore Wind
By Paul Homewood
One colleague contacted me regarding his MP, who is vice-chair of the Climate All Party Parliamentary Group. She supports the Net Zero agenda and agrees with plans to massively increase offshore wind capacity.
He asked me to prepare a summary of the “No” case, to put alongside her version.
I have therefore prepared a Factsheet, which I show below.
It might come in handy if anybody else wishes to grill their MP!
OFFSHORE WIND POWER FACTSHEET
COSTS
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The new Administrative Strike Price for offshore wind is £73/MWh at 2012 prices. This equals £100.27 at today’s prices. By the time new projects are commissioned they will be much higher because of indexation. (1)
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The market price of electricity was £78.22/MWh in October, according to OFCOM. (2)
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According to the latest DESNZ data, the levelised cost of CCGT gas-fired electricity is currently £54/MWh, excl Carbon Tax. (3)
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New offshore wind power is clearly much more expensive than gas, even before taking into account the extra billions in wider system costs – system balancing, standby generation, upgrades to transmission grids, constraint payments, etc.
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Existing offshore wind power is even more expensive, averaging £176/MWh this year for those generators with CfDs. (4)
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Currently, subsidies to offshore wind are costing electricity users £4.8 billion a year. (5)
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The cost of offshore wind power is so high that many projects off the US east coast have been cancelled because they are not viable
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Because CfDs are inflation indexed each year, these costs will continue to rise. This will lock households into permanently high and increasing electricity bills.
UNRELIABILITY
According to research, wind power, (both onshore and offshore) produces less than 20% of its capacity for 20 weeks a year, and less than 10% for 9 weeks. (6)
Under government plans, all power will be decarbonised by 2035, leaving us with the following capacity in broad terms under current plans:
Offshore Wind – 56 GW
Onshore Wind – 28 GW
Solar Power – 70 GW
Nuclear – 5 GW
Biomass/Hydro – 10 GW
Acccording to the National Grid’s Future Scenarios, peak demand will rise to 98 GW in 2035, because of the electrification of transport and heating. (7)
When wind power is only supplying 10% of its capacity, there will clearly be a massive shortage of power, in the order of 70 GW. (Bear in mind that solar power only supplies 3% of its capacity in winter).
REFERENCES
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OFCOM – https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/energy-data-and-research/data-portal/wholesale-market-indicators
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LCCC- https://dp.lowcarboncontracts.uk/dataset/actual-cfd-generation-and-avoided-ghg-emissions
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Notalotofpeopleknowthat – https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2023/11/17/offshore-wind-costs/
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Capell Aris – http://www.iesisenergy.org/agp/Aris-Wind-paper.pdf
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Future Energy Scenarios – https://www.nationalgrideso.com/future-energy/future-energy-scenarios/documents
Comments are closed.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
That all sounds excellent, but I can’t see 99% of MPs understanding a word of it.
There is also the problem of large numbers of the population who aim to be as thick as MPs. I pointed out recently when after gas, imports were the second largest electricity source at over 11% and one of my group did not see that as a problem. And then in a stroke of genius said that it would take time for all the additional windmills to be built at a time when the current lot were hardly turning. Worryingly he works for an insurance and investment company and seems to lack the understanding that double zero isn’t a brilliant outcome.
Hi Phillip. I see you are implying that six to seven MPs will understand Paul’s words. This sounds a little high to me because most don’t have the attention span to read such magterial let alone understand it. However, let’s hope I am very wrong. Regards Peter
Attention span? Jings they can’t even be seen even sitting there when there other important details being discussed which are “contrary ” to the public good eg all that recent Covid stuff ( wasn’t that it? )
Well I can think of at least two (assuming they are still MPs). With hindsight perhaps I should have said 99.7% of MPs
If one was Peter Lilley well sorry he is now Lord Lilley. Regards Peter
PS I can also think of two Stringer and one of the Davies
Phillip Bratby : I think you are correct. I have recently decided to only send my MP bar charts in future in the email itself so they see it when they open the email. Text and attachments are ignored I am sure.
The worst problem in our so-called democracy today is that contact by email to an MP results in a rely which is only his own opinion. In the days of writing leetters to the MP at Westminster was that, assuming the letter had serious content, it was forwarded to the relevant minister and the latter’s reply was sent to the constituent. That way, at least, comments got to the responsible department. Today? Just wasting time and effort.
I think that Paul needs to aim this at the level of a 12 year olds as mp’s are certainly unable to comprehend anything with science or maths in it
Phillip,
If it were about the technical deficiencies of wind and solar, I could understand that. What I do not understand or accept that such a report is too complicated for the average secondary school pupil, much less adults.
These adults that run our government should already have had those facts available to them years ago, for which I must question the competence of our civil service in the energy departmment.
Maybe the Civil Service are over stressed and can’t cope with a normal day’s work, as they are currently putting in for a Four Day Week.
Not the civil services fault, the goverment only listen to the CCC.
Mr Osborn,
that the government may only listen to the CCC may be valid, but the civil service in my dealings with them are totally technically illiterate and then that does not remove them from their duty to correctly advise the government which they patently are not doing.
About 6, no improvement since the Climate Change Act.
That sounds right.
I’m afraid you’re correct. Either nearly all of our MPs are too dim and scientifically illiterate to understand this or they are wilfully ignoring it as they surrender to the net zero religion, where any questioning is blasphemy. Probably both !
And there isn’t even any mention of the effects offshore wind has on marine wildlife and birds. The recent whale kills on the US east coast come to mind… Who speaks up for our environment in the face of these mechanical monstrocities? Jethro Tull’s “Thick as a Brick”.
Your information is all wrong paul.
According to the bbc’s Matt mcgrath on the world service today this year will be the hottest since records began 250,000 years ago. Not proxies or computer guesses but actual records. He also informs us that solar power is by far the cheapest form of energy in the uk.
If Matt says it, it must be true so the climate wars are over and you might as well close down this blog.
He goes for 125000 years here
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-67627242
Apparently domestic solar PV is producing the cheapest electricity in history.
I think this my favourite though, use your expensive BEV not as a car but as a profit making grid backup, I’m almost tempted to buy 2, there’s room on my drive.
However new technology is in the process of changing that perception and possibly making EVs more cost effective.
The idea is called Vehicle2Grid, or V2G and it’s essentially the kit needed to send and receive power from your car to your house and on to the national grid.
The idea is that if you can charge the car when energy is cheap, you can sell it back to the grid when it’s more expensive and turn a profit.
EV batteries wear out, and with V2G they’ll wear out faster.
Good luck getting your VAT back! And good luck charging your EV when electricity is “cheap” if all the other EV owners are doing the same.
Didn’t this used to be known as “taking in each other’s washing”?
What happens if you suddenly decide you want to er …drive somewhere?!
Rooftop solar panels would make more sense.
According to Linkedin, Matt McGrath has an MA in Journalism.
It does not say what was the subject of his first degree.
I bet its not science though !
Who was recording temperatures 250,000 years ago?
Mr McGoo also said something to the effect that by 2030, (possibly) we shall have installed enough batteries in UK to power 18 million homes, WOW! But he did not say for how long! Typical non-scientific reporter
And what happens when the batteries are drained?
“we shall have installed enough batteries in UK to power 18 million homes for 20 minutes”
Fixed it.
Facts are useless against dogma.
The Net Zero agenda is indistinguishable from Khmer Rouge agenda.
One sentence fact sheet:
This is going to kill 30,000,000 people, end the UK, and disperse 8 million Londoners to the countryside.
A great analysis, Paul.
In addition, the MPs need reminding that additional offshore wind installations will generate only NON-DISPATCHABLE power, and, at a pattern very similar to that of our existing ~15GW of offshore metered capacity.
e.g.
The data source is The Crown Estate:
https://www.thecrownestate.co.uk/en-gb/what-we-do/asset-map/#tab-2
I think the problem MPs have is that they think more wind power will reduce unreliability, but it is likely to increase it. Assuming we have generally sited wind so far where it’s most reliable, each new wind farm will be less and less reliable. That will reduce the average, not increase it as the UK is small enough to suffer from complete lack of wind everywhere frequently.
And more wind generation will mean less business for fossil fuel generators. I.e., the greater penetration of wind into the energy market, the less backup there will be.
As more highly-variable wind capacity gets added to the grid, the greater the gap between peaks & troughs that must be met by dispatchable resources. i.e. FFs & firewood.
That is why the focus is on a European interconnector system: there will be always wind in one part if not the other. Given that really does not necessary work well enough in the small landmass of Europe, they are looking further afield, and at huge solar in the deserts of North Africa.
Of course, that has huge engineering issues as well as their physical security. With the fragmentation of western civilisation the affordability of the former is most unlikely as will be the latter.
Sapper2
“That is why the focus is on a European interconnector system: there will be always wind in one part if not the other.”
1. Lulls affect multiple countries simultaneously, Consequently, when we at ‘the end’ of the system suffer a lull, so do our neighbours, so they have little or no ‘spare’ leccy to sell.
2. “Given that really does not necessary work well enough in the small landmass of Europe, they are looking further afield, and at huge solar in the deserts of North Africa.”
The major project touted is the Xlinks Morocco-UK Power Project. Sadly, when it’s nighttime in UK and our solar generates sweet FA, it’s also nighttime in western Morocco. 🤣🤣
Yes, our dim MPs clearly believe that if you double the number of wind turbines that are producing no electricity because of lack of wind, you’ll somehow magically make them start generating.
They really are as thick as that, I’m afraid.
Net zero is a religion so if you subscribe to it you don’t question its beliefs because, to do so, is blasphemy.
First of all you need to get them to understand ‘despatchable’ and ‘non-despatchable’.
Paul,
Just had this from Mike Yeadon, a man I trust. But it seems completely loopy, is Steve Kitsch insane? Is anything he says credible?
https://outraged.substack.com/p/steve-kirsch
From the outraged article
” I’m just telling you what the overwhelming scientific consensus is.”
Some people hold a belief that humans are responsible for dangerous climate change, but here is no proof that humans are responsible for dangerous climate change.
Paul, I think the CfD @ £176 was for floating offshore wind. I would also tend to emphasise that every GW of offshore wind will require a dedicated GW of power lines stretching all the way from wind farm to point of use that is likely to lie in the Midlands of England and beyond. I suspect this is a major component of the high cost of distant floating generators.
Nat Grid informs that ” ….subsea links have a maximum capacity of 2000 MW …” – so connecting those mega offshore wind farms the politicians blithely mention will via multiple parallel cables, be massively expensive.
Click to access Norwich-to-Tilbury-community-newsletter-December-2023.pdf
Hi Euan.
Paul is right. You can download the data from here:
https://dp.lowcarboncontracts.uk/dataset/actual-cfd-generation-and-avoided-ghg-emissions
A bit of spreadsheet jiggery pokery (using pivot tables to help summarise and sort the data, and creating some additional columns first to calculate actual revenue at strike price by multiplying strike prices by daily MWh generated per CFD, and for the year and month, and I also calculate a “market price” revenue using the weighted IMRP figure, which is based on day ahead prices for each hour and actual generation for each hour for each CFD).
You are also right that for AR6 the government has set a maximum bid price of £176/MWh in 2012 money for floating offshore wind, which is of course worth a lot more currently: with indexation applied to CFDs in operation it would be £235.40/MWh. The Crown Estate is busy pushing the Celtic Sea for up to 4.5GW of this costly boondoggle.
https://www.thecrownestate.co.uk/our-business/marine/round-5
Whilst Hywind continues to do reasonably well (and coining it financially from its 3.5ROCs/MWh worth perhaps £235/MWh on top of quite healthy market prices), the often ignored Kincardine venture that uses bigger turbines has run into major problems, with at least two turbines being towed into port for repair taking around a year at a time each.
But the Royal Society thinks we can create green hydrogen with another 20% extra windmills and store it in thousands of salt caverns at 300 bar pressure under people’s homes. What’s not to like?
https://royalsociety.org/-/media/policy/projects/large-scale-electricity-storage/Large-scale-electricity-storage-report.pdf?la=en-GB&hash=C5A09BDA174196AA3822CD7B862A5D08
Quite a lot apparently:
https://davidturver.substack.com/p/royal-society-large-electricity-storage-report
It would help me as a lay person if the abbreviations and measurements were briefly explained. This is really important.
Hi rich, which particular “abbreviations and measurements” are you not understanding? Not an impertinent question but Paul has simply used standard units, are you saying these are difficult to understand?
Can I assume that you understand kWh the unit your energy bills use, and kW, the power rating at which your larger consuming appliances (kettle, fan heater, stove…) use energy (smaller ones like like lights are usually just rated in Watts)? A 2kW fan heater uses 1kWh in half an hour. 1kW is just over 4amps of current at 240V. A 13A fuse is just enough to tolerate a 3kW kettle.
k is short for kilo- or multiply by 1,000.
In addition to domestic scale quantities it is used for grid scale voltages such as 132kV, 400kV.
M is short for Mega- or multiply by 1 million (1,000 times kilo-)
MW and MWh are used for industrial scale measurements.
G is short for Giga- or multiply by 1 billion (1,000 times Mega-)
GW is used for capacity of large scale operations (interconnectors, nuclear plants, large wind farms) and national level data such as average demand, with GWh used for e.g. daily national energy use.
T is short for Tera- or multiply by 1 trillion (1,000 times Giga- and 1 million times Mega-)
TWh is convenient for national annual energy use or annual output of large generators.
When wind power is only supplying 10% of its capacity, there will clearly be a massive shortage of power, in the order of 70 GW.
This can’t be difficult to grasp – can it?
The decadent think the existing generators will always be there. They will stay in business when there is no business.
Excellent summary Paul, thank you.
I get the feeling the message is getting through to more and more people. Sooner or later the BBC/C4 dam will break.
The real killer against any wind turbines, whether on-shore or off-shore, is that they all use Sulphur Hexafluoride in the switch gear. The UN’s very own IPCC has determined that sulphur hexafluoride is the most potent Global Warming gas of all, far worse than CO2 or methane!
They’re working on it onshore.
At voltages up to 12 kV, manufacturers have developed SF6 free designs employing dry air. Above 12 kV it is necessary to achieve a higher dielectric strength, while maintaining the same dimensions. This can be realised by increasing the absolute pressure or by using an insulation gas with a higher dielectric strength.
For UK Power Networks’ 36 kV switchgear installation, dry air switchgear would need to operate at a significantly higher pressure, several bar. This requires a change of mindset for mechanical design of switchgear, increasing cost. For example, developing tanks with thicker walls and potentially using cylindrical geometry like that used on HV switchgear to contain the pressure.
High pressure operation could also affect availability and a loss of pressure would mean loss of insulating performance. Therefore, a network operator would likely need to monitor pressure constantly and have the capability to take a unit out of service immediately to protect the network and avoid potential for an arc flash incident. This would require deployment of pressure sensors across the fleet, integration with SCADA systems, and regular testing and certification.
It is possible to avoid these disadvantages by specifying GIS with a low-pressure design that uses an eco-efficient gas as the insulation medium.
Fluoroketones are the magic gas. Still requires about 1.4bar operating pressure, and is good for 36kV. Fluoronitrile is being trialled in 400kV substations as a direct SF6 replacement.
https://www.nationalgrid.com/national-grid-and-hitachi-energy-announce-world-first-collaboration-replace-sf6-existing-high
Two days ago I had eye surgery, with a gas bubble inserted in the eye for pressure/shape control. The body absorbs the gas in a week or two and sight returns.
The gas is sulphur hexafluoride, SF6, the same as this article mentions as a potent greenhouse gas. Should eye surgeons be researching a replacement gas?
No, the global use of SF6 for eyes is tiny. But, so is the global use in electrical insulation.
Calling for its replacement to avoid greenhouse tragedy is, shall we say, rather one-eyed. Geoff S
On the same theme ( from my mailbox this now) AND ( PITY that OUR country never behaved like this to prevent Brexit ): translated “The EU Commission has an ambitious plan to become climate neutral by 2050. Proposals for compulsory renovation of older, uninsulated buildings caused outrage among homeowners. The owners’ association warned of a dramatic loss in value and the KFW development bank had calculated costs of €254 billion.
However, this intended obligation will not exist now. According to dpa, negotiators from the European Parliament and the EU states have agreed on stricter requirements. Instead, the energy consumption of residential buildings is expected to decrease by an average of 16% by 2030 and by 20 to 22% by 2035.
The CDU reacted happily
Politicians: “Grandma’s house is safe,” it was said. In addition, there is little to no European binding left in the directive.”
More at https://www.agrarwelt.com/energie/zwangs-sanierungspflicht-fuer-ungedaemmte-wohnhaeuser-ist-vom-tisch.html
So now Oma will be dead because her home got too cold to be able to fight off illness. If covid didn’t get her, this will.
A very handy crib-sheet, Paul, but I would like to see a bit more detail on costs for this para in the last four lines after ‘costs -‘:
“New offshore wind power is clearly much more expensive than gas, even before taking into account the extra billions in wider system costs – system balancing, standby generation, upgrades to transmission grids, constraint payments, etc.”
I did some research on that to answer someone asking questions over at Watt-logic.
We are already seeing big increases in grid costs. In 2008/9, transmission network TNUoS charges were £1.35bn – the grid “before renewables” was relatively low cost, and carried 400TWh in the peak year. By 2018/19, the cost had escalated to £2.7bn even though demand had dropped, and the charges for 2023/24 are £4.1bn – 3 times already what they were 15 years ago. National Grid has a £200bn+ investment programme between now and 2035 which would add ~£10bn p.a. to those charges. Demand currently is only around 270TWh per year, so the unit cost has risen substantially: unit charges are now over 4 times what they were.
Much the same is true of balancing costs, which were £5-600m p.a., and have now ballooned to around £4bn p.a., so the cost is 7-8 times higher, or 10-12 times in unit cost terms.
Belated thanks, IDAU. These cost are just ignored, it seems to me, yet they haven’t even peaked, I’ll bet.
Just what we need Paul, a summary of energy costs with that gas price as the stand-out figure. Doesn’t look anything like Milliband’s famous ‘wind 5 times cheaper than fossil fuels’ to me.
I keep thinking about our Chinese friends, if we had their modern coal power plants would the MWh price be even lower than gas?
Latest from Starmer was 3x cheaper! Coming down! 9 to 5 to 3!
The target MP may be labouring under the misunderstanding that, if you install 1 GW of wind power, you may safely retire 1 GW of gas power. The reasons that this is not true need to be hammered home.
I would also very much like to see the slaughter of otherwise protected birds mentioned as a key reason to avoid wind power. Wind turbines are the very opposite of green.
Then that MP should be asked that very question: where would your power come from when the wind doesn’t blow (and answers that say the wind blows somewhere etc, are vanned).
Jit, this abomination was passed despite multiple objections. The locals didn’t complain largely on account of there aren’t any. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Cheyne_Court_Wind_Farm
It takes down staggering numbers of large birds but it’s okay ‘cos it’s green!
And let’s not forget cats kill more birds per year…allegedly. How many Cormorants did moggy take down last year?
Jit: You do touch upon it but it hasn’t been stresses enough throughout this depate that electricuity usage is only about 20% of the energy this country uses.
How frequently do wind facilities need to be replaced compared to coal, gas, and nuclear plants?
160 kilometers {100 miles} south of me is a nuclear plant – the Columbia Generating Station. It entered commercial operation in December 1984. The 39 years involves upgrades and refueling. 39 is also the median age of the USA population. Half the population is younger than the Station.
Will the majority of the wind towers exist in 2063 in substantially the same form as today?
Also, nuclear facilities (also coal and gas) are more reliable.
Nuclear power plants operated at full capacity more than 92% of the time in 2022—making it the most reliable energy source in America. That’s about 1.5 to 2 times more reliable as natural gas (56.7%) and coal (47.8%) plants, and roughly 2.5 to 3.5 times more reliable than wind (36.1%) and solar (24.8%) plants. (U.S. gov data)
For my region, the chart here is instructive:
https://transmission.bpa.gov/Business/Operations/Wind/baltwg.aspx
Westinghouse commissioned Beznau in 1969 and they reckon it is good for 80 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beznau_Nuclear_Power_Plant
Some say modern reactors could end up centenarians. Most say modern wind turbines will struggle past 20 years.
10-4, John.
I am 10 clicks away from two nukes, nee 1985 and 1986.
No one is even thinking of retiring them.
GC, as well as having the highest number of heat pumps per head of population of any US state, I also understand that when Vogtle 4 comes online SC will also have the largest nuclear output of any US state overtaking both Pennsylvania and Illinois. Add in NC and they could probably power most of the UK! If true, hugely impressive for a state with a population less than that of Scotland.
“Missed it by that much!” — Maxwell Smart
Vogtle is across the river in Georgia. Across from the Savannah River Site (Plant, when I was growing up just north of there; both of Gamecock’s parent worked there), no less. SRP was ground zero for the West’s nuclear program.
We sardonically said that we were the Soviet’s #1 target. And #2 target. And #3 target.
Sorry my mistake GC, Call me Deacon Blues
John,
it is not so simple as that.
Reliability is the wrong term, it is availability and the reason that nuclear has such a high figure is that they run at near mximum at all times, this is economic for them as they get the maximum out of their asset. However grid demand varies and some generators have to modulate output to keep the grid in load and demand balance. Generally this is fossil fuel generators, renewables are unable to do this, and is why their (fossil fuel genertaors) availability seems low. Generally they can up output to near maximum as required, this is the difference between dispatchable generators and non dispatchable such as renewables.
” renewables are unable to do this” Don’t forget that hydro is a “renewable” and can be very versatile in output. France manages its huge nuclear fleet with mostly “natural” hydro plus some pumped storage hydro.
Gridwatch France demonstrates this very well
https://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/france/
Iain Reid is right: coal and gas are used to provide flex to accommodate changes in demand, and also to handle changes in output from renewables. Reliability for CCGT – i.e. will it be there when you call on it – is typically around 85%, and coal is a bit less. However, there is mostly little correlation between plant outages for gas and coal, except perhaps during extreme weather when the risks increase, sometimes for reasons outwith their control, such as access to cooling water, or loss of gas supply (see the Valentine’s Day Freeze in Texas), hurricanes, etc.
An excellent summary, Paul – thank you. Also some excellent suggestions here by way of possible amplification. I appreciate that it’s important to keep it short and to the point, but a revised and slightly extended version taking into account some of the points raised in the excellent comments here might be a good idea in due course.
Paul, under the costs heading you could add that wind power in general, and off-shore in particular, is terrible in Energy Return On Energy Invested (EROEI) terms, IIRC very roughly an order of magnitude worse that fossil fuels (FF). In other words wind power makes the impact on Gaia much larger than FF.
David Turver’s substack has the details.
Regards, John.
Hah! First question(?), therefore, to ask the MP: Do you know what the term EROEI means? Can you define it in terms of wind turbines?
I think that even MPs understand that renewables are intermittent. But they need to be reminded that, according to the 2023 NG ESO FES energy flow diagrams, there are as yet NO plans for long-term storage by either 2035 (decarbonisation date) or even by 2050 (Net Zero date) and hence if hydrocarbon generated power no longer exists we will have rolling blackouts all though the year, sometimes lasting many days.
I would also be comparing the cost of the AR6 CfDs for fixed and floating offshore wind with the cost of nuclear which is reliable, weather independent and doesn’t require the extra cost of undersea cabling for those who insist our power must not emit CO2. The Finnish EDF EPR is supplying electricity at £45/MWh, less than half the cost of the UK Chinese financed (9%) EDF EPR at Hinkley Point C, the Korean built UAE nuclear plants are 1/3 of the cost of Hinkley Point C (£/GW) and RR are quoting to the HoC ES&NZ Select Committee MWhr prices which are 25% to 50% lower than fixed offshore wind for AR6.
“I think that even MPs understand that renewables are intermittent.” I genuinely do not think they do
The great majority of MPs are convinced that virtue signalling the fact that their policies “saves the planet”, is orders of magnitude more important than costs, or even unarguable facts.
Until the brown stuff really hits the fan, they are likely correct. In any case, they will worry about next year only once (if) they are first past the post in the election.
Is there an estimate of a market price per MWh for a modern coal-fired power station? Perhaps excluding carbon tax?
Micky,
while I have no figures, I understand that coal is very competitive in cost. It’s other and ignored advantage is that it is an optional source of generation that is realiable. we have put our fuel eggs in one basket now which is gas and that we rely so much on importing it does concern me.
Coal plants can stack a mountain of coal to insure production for a very long time.
It would be great to have realistic figures for super ultracritical coal generation.
The fact that both China and India (and likely Indonesia and others) are emphatically going down that road, is evidence that it is cheap and reliable.
But China and India can access cheap coal. (I understand that Mongolia has around a billion tonnes on stock!)
We can’t. No current coal production of much more than you might find down the back of your sofa. Who will reliably sell us coal at a reasonable price?
Nuclear and Fracking.
Gamecock
Before and during the Miners v Thatcher showdown i drove past Ratcliffe on Soar every day to work.
I watched the stockpile grow into a mountain, which hardly diminished during the strike. They’re probably getting through the residue now!
Had Scargill ask me I would have told him not to bother, his members could never outlast the stocks of coal.
He was totally out manoeuvred
I cant specifically answer your question either but I can say that Siemens claim their new Advanced Ultra Supercritical Coal Plants are closing in on 50% conversion efficiency. Add in some form of industrial use of the waste heat either for heating, cooling or even driving Adsorption heat pumps and they are seriously economic at scale.
As Iain above is suggesting we really should be looking at reliable coal. The truly weird thing is that Ed (no Brain) Miliband and Tony Bliar were both pushing “Clean Coal” not that long ago!
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/apr/18/coal-carbon-capture-storage
Stuff the CCS but the new generation coal plants were an excellent idea.
They were indeed pushing for Carbon Capture and Storage. This still is getting money thrown at it (for gas generation, not coal, which ends next September anyway).
Miliband is certainly thick enough to not realise that CCS is loony tunes stuff. But even in 2009, I thought and still think that CCS was just another stake to drive through the heart of the coal industry. A few billions of taxpayer’s money wasted? You think they care?
A modern coal station operated in baseload mode could achieve 45%+ efficiency. With coal prices currently around £100/tonne for 6,000kcal/kg quality CIF Europe, that works out as an energy cost of about £28.60/MWh. The capital cost for a HELE plant is perhaps now around £2,500/kW or £2.5bn/GW, and the annualised cost of providing that is £150m to cover interest and depreciation. If we take output as 80% capacity factor allowing for maintenance and other downtime, or 7TWh/year, that adds another ~£21/MWh to cost, with maintenance, workforce, water, business rates etc. adding probably less than £5/MWh, so we are looking at a total of around £55/MWh. Carbon taxes have been a very moveable feast, having added as much as £90/MWh to existing coal costs at one point, but with demand much lower and so much coal being shut early the UKA price has collapsed to about £30/MWh for existing coal, with the result that old power stations find it economic to compete – you may have noted we are much more consistently running coal at the moment. They are less efficient, which increases their carbon taxation pro rata, but as they are now completely written off their costs are fuel (about £43/MWh), carbon tax and operating expenditure: since they are closing they make no allowance for maintenance, because if the plant goes bang they will shut down early.
Meanwhile the EU is complaining that UK carbon taxes are cheaper than theirs, which they regard as unfair competition – so they plan to tax electricity exports from the UK, even though those will only occur on windy days other than to Eire, which imports on windless days.
” … Meanwhile the EU is complaining that UK carbon taxes are cheaper than theirs, which they regard as unfair competition – so they plan to tax electricity exports from the UK ….”
But, but, but … National Grid would have folk believe someone has invented a special filter that allows only ‘clean’ energy from England to flow through an interconnector:
I think the EU are well aware that we only export (other than to Ireland) on windy days when they too probably have surplus wind. Of course, UK consumers get to subsidise the exports via ROCs and CFDs so export prices are low and even negative. That is a problem because it means bigger subsidies are required for EU renewables with revenues cannibalised by competing with cheap imports. Hence the protectionist tax proposal.
” Carbon taxes have been a very moveable feast, ”
Thanks for the detailed post IDUA. The battle that needs to be won is general recognition that there is no proof that humans are responsible for dangerous climate change; this should facilitate the removal of carbon taxes if the true cost of net zero is publicised.
In my view, general acceptance that humans are responsible for dangerous climate change probably finishes the use of coal for electricity generation in the UK. Other posters may have different views.
One other factor for offshore wind farms along the Atlantic coast in the U.S. and Canada is hurricanes. Most locations along the coast are hit by a level 3 or stronger hurricane every ten years or so. Such strong hurricanes will destroy most of the wind turbines the go through.
Generally true, but the state of Virginia never gets hit.
Turbines claim to survive 75m/s winds which is 168mph, which is Cat 5 territory. Not sure that has ever been really tested.
In more practical terms it seems that wear on bearings and blades is significant on larger turbines even at rather lower speeds, increasing maintenancecost and limiting life.
“The new Administrative Strike Price for offshore wind is £73/MWh at 2012 prices. This equals £100.27 at today’s prices.”
Yes, GOOD POINT. This is a fair and correct assertion that it is misleading to compare today’s depreciated money values to prices expressed in 2012 terms. For the values presented, you are accepting CPI is a measure of the depreciation of money. So far, so good.
“By the time new projects are commissioned they will be much higher because of indexation. (1)”
BAD POINT. You have just contradicted the position established in the previous sentence. Unless you can say those new project will be paid more than CPI-adjusted values, the amount they will be paid (like-for-like money) will not have increased at all. The numerical value may be different, but not the value.
“Because CfDs are inflation indexed each year, these costs will continue to rise.”
SAME BAD POINT.
You have to be consistent if you are going to win any arguments here. If you don’t understand inflation, you give people the reason they may be looking forward to rubbish anything else you have to say.
At the moment the environmental zealots are still getting there way and will do for sometime yet but what must be got over is that the only reliable backup we have for lack of wind or no solar days is GAS GAS GAS there is no alternative. So we must not let what has happened with coal is for CCGTs to be just blown up before they are even cold or we really will be screwed.