Net Zero Watch calls on energy minister to come clean about renewables costs
By Paul Homewood
Net Zero Watch has called on Lord Callanan to come clean about the costs of renewable energy. The demand came after the minister’s refusal to address a question posed by Lord Frost in the House of Lords.
In oral questions on Thursday, Lord Frost noted Whitehall claims that renewables are half the cost of gas-fired electricity, and asked for an explanation of why subsidies were still required, and why the strike prices on offer to windfarms this year are twice what Lord Callanan says they need to make a profit. As Hansard shows, Lord Callanan failed to answer the question, simply reiterating his false claims about levelized costs.[i]
Net Zero Watch director Andrew Montford said:
If wind power is as cheap as Lord Callanan claims, then no subsidies are necessary. He can’t have it both ways. It’s painfully obvious that he is trying to hide the truth from the public. This can’t go on.
During the subsequent discussion, Lord Callanan told Lord Howell that the levelised cost figures he was quoting “take account of other system costs”.[ii] This is incorrect.
Notes
[i] https://www.theyworkforyou.com/lords/?id=2024-05-16a.685.0
[ii] https://www.theyworkforyou.com/lords/?id=2024-05-16a.684.4#g687.0
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Aye it seems, for sure, Wash it’s hands of it. (” It ” can be what it likes). IOW Clear out! and BTW , ..WHERE’s the wind today ? AGAIN & AGAIN & AGAIN & AGAIN & AGAIN & AGAIN & AGAIN & AGAIN & AGAIN & AGAIN & AGAIN & AGAIN & AGAIN & AGAIN & Again ….. All the batteries are sure to be flat now, Sumitomo is dredging new canals for the currents of food ….. … not exactly Main/frontline news for supposedly such a BIG DEAL eh ? But maybe the Nigg-ers there will be happy
That’ll be the day.
Hansard = The text of many parliamentary debates
Answer to a question by a colonist of the western edge of North America.
What is Callanan behind that moniker? He’s either incompetent or a liar.
Both, and then some.
No, he’s a politician. So he tows the line, and the line us wind is cheap. He knows its not true, he knows many of us know its not true, but so what? I can’t recall a claim made by any politician in the last five years about anything that was true.
And they scratch their heads wondering why nobody trusts them and election turnout is so low.
The scholars will love it when they don’t get to school.
A half-million school buses across US could become EV battery powerhouse feeding energy back onto the grid
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/05/15/half-million-school-buses-in-us-could-be-an-ev-powerhouse-feeding-grid.html
Because by magic supply:demand will be just right to recharge them before 7am…
And you’ve got all of that ‘free’ excess solar power available after 10 PM for charging the buses, too…
Tosser.
This is all very well but how can you charge 10 in parallel?
China develops revolutionary electric car battery that can charge in 10 minutes
‘Remarkable’ developments in chemistry allow vehicles to travel 600 miles between charges
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/05/17/china-revolutionary-electric-car-battery-charge-10-minutes/
depends on how many Uighars are pushing.
What retailers are paying to wind farms (excluding other costs of remoteness – more pylons, curtailment and turn-up of alternative generation because of lack of pylons; intermittency – turn up of alternative generation, keeping generation on standby, Capacity Market costs; and curtailment due to surplus supply that appear in network and balancing charges):
Day Ahead Market prices are typically determined by gas generation, or imports from nuclear (France), hydro (Norway) or coal/co-firing (BritNed). To a small but growing extent they can be set by renewables surpluses.
“Breakthrough in battery technology” is the new “Revolutionary cancer treatment”.
Or “fusion power is just 10 yrs away from providing abundant free energy”
Just for info, European wholesale gas prices are currently around one-tenth of their peak. But that’s still around five times US gas prices. So if fracking were to work in the UK and halved gas pruces here, the cost of gas generation would fall by around 25%.
Maybe Paul should remind the government about all those forecasts for gas prices from “experts” that claimed prices would never fall?
There isn’t a single US gas price: there are at times quite big regional variations. But if we take Henry Hub as the basis (there will be distribution costs making for higher Citygate prices in almost any US city fed from there – cheapest supply is close to Alberta), it settled on Friday at $2.64/MMBtu, worth about 20.8p/therm, against NBP at 74.27p/therm a factor of just under 3.6.
You can get an idea of the spread of Citygate prices here:
https://www3.eia.gov/dnav/ng/ng_pri_sum_a_EPG0_PG1_DMcf_m.htm
Steady on. You’ll be asking for a concise statement of the scientific background to MMGW. You know, experiment, observation, process, causation. The end of the climate scam brought about by… debate.
Well done and good luck to you …thank you for holding these people to account
Speaking of subsidies. Drax is now (allegedly) commissioning a “wood chip powered cargo vessel” To take woodchips from the DRAX OWNED forests to Japan. How the heck can a power plant that should be running at a loss expend that kind of Capital?