Tuesday
May122015
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill The consolation prize
May 12, 2015 Energy: wind After the appointment of a green tinged minister at DECC, the realist community's consolation prize from the Cameron government is the appointment of a windfarm sceptic as one of her underlings. Andrea Leadsom has campaigned vigorously and consistently against onshore wind but despite this has managed to get herself a role as minister of state at DECC.
However, what this signfies is unclear. One wouldn't put it past Mr Cameron to try to spend his way out of a corner by going for the eye-wateringly expensive offshore wind instead.
Reader Comments (26)
How to keep the lights on repeal the Climate Change Act
Too right, jamspid.
And there I was the least dangerous party won, perhaps now some sense would emerge......but no, first off a green activist appears at the DECC. Can I have my vote back please? Are there no true Conservatives left? And does Cameron not know that "a quota system" is discriminatory and shames both those who profit and those who promote it?
I'm with "jamspid". Perhaps you can start a petition Bishop.
All this politics talk
the next By Election why don't the Skeptic movement put up its own candidate ?
Wont win but get the message out there.
I think this is one of those inertia moments whereby it'll take a long time to turn the ship around. I was hoping that Cameron would actually do what he said was needed, first off last time, "get rid of all this green crap!"
jamspid
Tallbloke stood as a UKIP candidate, I don't know of any others.
Couldn't wealthy lanowners, like for eample the Prime Minister's Father-in-Law, use wind turbines as a form of target practice, as opposed to clay pigeons (which the Green blob want to see scheduled as endangered species).
This would provide year round income, and because wind farms are only built in remote locations, no one will hear the noise.
Renewable targets, such as Green election manifestos, could be tied to the ends of the turbine blades, and peppered with leadsom shot. This may give some people a lot of satisfaction, especially if the wind is actually blowing hard enough, to make these targets move, without artificial assistance, and would allow the UK to claim that Renewable Targets were being hit, regularly.
Obviously their may be some damage to the, (non renewable, but very expensive to replace) wind turbines, but no one is likely to notice the difference.
"However, what this signfies is unclear"
Just another tick in the female-quota box.
Under the coalition there were disgruntled Tories after the Lib-dems had their quota of ministerial jobs, now its the white, male, public school types being cast aside.
@golf charlie: a good idea, target practice. However, why not use the landowners and the executives of the windmill companies as the targets?
If Cameron really does buy into the Green Blob thing then our opinions are irrelevant.
If on the other hand he likes the jobs and 'feel good' factor, but wants to gently wind back from over-committing to 'renewables', then the route of least resistance lies with a stealth strategy that doesn't provoke outright war with greens (which includes the Lords, where the Tories have lost the coalition majority and are now in the minority)
So he nominally appoints someone who doesn't agitate the Greens (because he has much bigger fish to fry in this parliament: EU vote, the deficit, getting his party re-elected again) while reigning back excessive Green nonsense and finally pushing ahead with shale, delivering nuclear and re-shaping the energy market to be much more stable.
It's practical, trade-off politics; don't pick an avoidable fight chasing 100% of what you want (but may not get) if you can get 90% of what you want by not picking a fight!
I think that he (David Cameron) was obliged to put a green activist in this position in order
to appease the EU who will have suggested that such an appointment
might help when he attempts to negotiate better terms for the UK.
The EU will use the impending Paris climate summit as a means of controlling UK
climate policy.
Why has Owen Patterson been overlooked?
Pesadia you are overthinking things. Better to understand that he's as dumb as a post and simply refuses to be educated by the increasing number of highly qualified people telling him about the stark engineering realities. Far easier listening to the dreamers who couldn't build a box (and wouldn't anyway unless it was biodegradable).
pesadia....Re Paterson: surely you've answered your own question? The EU will decide 90% of UK 'climate' policy anyway. So why put Paterson in, who would campaign against any significant agreement at Paris and then when he lost it would promptly be seen as a serious government defeat? Talk about starting a fire in your own front room.
Instead, put a Green sympathiser in DECC in order to be better placed to argue for shale on Cameron's behalf over a hostile anti-Green Blob 'denier' like Paterson. (Good as he was when in office) It will limit Green resistance while hopefully delivering shale. Crafty bastard is our Dave.
NCC 1701E Interesting idea, but I was trying to avoid the extremist opinions so beloved, of extremists.
Rent-a-Mob went on the rampage over the weekend.
Subsidy farmers and subsidy dependent businesses are Rent-a-Green Blob. Happy to take the money, and keep their mouth shut. The cost of the subsidies could be measured against school fees for children or grandchildren. That would give Rent-a-Mob something different to get angry about, the people who formulate the Green subsidy economy.
Let's just hope that none of these laydees are actually Natalie Bennett after some attention from a modern-day Dr Dolittle....
'Say after me: the rain in Spain....'
'The rine in Spine - what about it, mate..? Fall minely on the pline, does it..? Not any, mate - not since climate change...'
Whilst UKIP failed to get many MPs, if one counts the vote, generally the more anti-wind the party the higher the vote. Also I was predicting a move away from the main parties. And again, this move was far stronger toward UKIP than the greens.
But the key is what message will the MPs bring back from their constituencies about "global warming". The options are:
1. No one was talking about it
2. People were talking about it and being hostile
3. people were talking about it and wanting more carbon taxation
And then there's the relative change in these types of opinion.
It's almost certain from the lack of mention in the election, that MPs found global warming alarmism was not a vote winner - in other words, it was best to keep quiet.
MPs will now be getting back to work. A few who specialise in global warming/wind will already have a fair idea which way the wind is blowing and will only have their views modified. So, we might start hearing some noises from the "nerds" in the next month or so. Likely those who oppose wind farms will be strengthened in their views and those that favour birdmincers will be less convinced they have support.
But, the bulk of MPs really don't waste their time on this issue. But that means they don't normally talk about it, and so speaking to the public and hearing the experience of other MPs speaking to the public will probably tell them that they were significantly out of step with the electorate.
But as they don't usually deal with this issue, it could be 6-12 months before ordinary MPs have to vote on the issue.
So, the real indicator of where we are going, is not the knee jerk appointment of some minister just after the election, but the direction ordinary MPs take the issue over the next 12 months.
"the eye-wateringly expensive offshore wind instead". Come on Bish, Hinkley 'C' is now expected to cost 24.5 billion and output 3200MW. That is approcx 7.5 million per MW. A quick Google tells me that offshore wind is 2.8 million per MW, a third as much. Hinkley has become that "the eye-wateringly expensive" project - though what with dodgy pressure vessels and Austrian lawsuits, and Areva losing billions last year perhaps it is never going to happen. But then there is the tidal barrage thingy in Wales somewhere which generates max power at 3.00am on certain days (predictable centuries in advance) and stops at lunchtime.
Offshore wind with its' 37.5% capacity factor backed up by CCGT gas begins to look more attractive to me.
Of course, maybe the Bishops followers should start a save Longannet movement ....
#Peter.
Not even energy speculators agree with your assessment. If you read the industry press you would know that we have seen some 8GW of Round 3 UK offshore projects abandoned in a little over 12 months as uneconomic, even with a 200% RO subsidy or projected £155/MWh strike rate under the EMR. That compares to installed offshore capacity of 4GW.
As Keith Anderson, chief executive officer of Spanish-owned Scottish Power Renewables, said in an interview, “There’s a bit of realism that unless we can deliver these projects for a lower price, then it’s unrealistic to expect to continue to get political and government support.”
Though we constantly hear of costs to the industry few mention the cost to the consumer who eventually pays the bill. Professor Dieter Helm, a leading energy economist and advisor to the British government, warned in 2011 that, “There is a real doubt whether energy customers can afford the £100 billion UK offshore wind would add to their bills”.
Centrica recently embarassed the Government after announcing their abandonment of the huge, and hugely contentious, Celtic Array, claiming that consumers could be saved £96bn by 2030 if ministers cut back on offshore wind and pursued a more sensible energy strategy.
Other countries are not following the UK. As at June 2014, 628MW of offshore capacity was operational in Germany. About 2,400MW was under construction. There is an increasing political backlash regarding the costs of the German offshore build and it seems increasingly unlikely that they will meet their 2020 target of 10GW of installed capacity.
The US and France have yet to commission any offshore capacity.
Many other countries have abandoned offshore ambitions, citing excessive costs, or are threatening to do so. Even the Danes are getting cold feet on the cost. The Danish climate and energy minister warned last year that the government may drop future offshore projects if the price of the power they produce does not come down "significantly".
At least there are a number of climate sceptics on the Tory benches. But I cannot think of one on either Labour, or what is left of the LibDems. And we all know that the Scots Nats are warmists to a man.
Peter Stroud
Scots Nats- and wind farms - look at this for a couple of examples
http://www.windbyte.co.uk/borders.html#bordersmap
http://www.windfarmaction.com/hc-windfarm-map.html
Sandys: Tallbloke stood for Pudsey and this is the result:
Stuart Andrew Conservative 23,637
Jamie Hanley Labour 19,136
Roger Tattersall UK Independence Party 4,689
Ryk Downes Liberal Democrat 1,926
Claire Allen Green 1,539
Three times more votes than the Greens and more than twice the LibDem!!!
@jamspid Mike Haseler the "Scottish Sceptic" in the end decided not to stand against Jo Swinson..who got booted out anyway
he says "The scare only has traction when people discuss it and as none of the parties including the greens were talking about climate I didn’t see any benefit creating an issue of it.
If I had stood, all I could achieve was to get the parties to reluctantly restate their support for the non-science climate policies which they formulated long ago but which they’ve not had time to ditch and would all rather forget about."
@NLys. The Nordsee German offshore farm just started. Cost £3.4 million per MW. That's half the projected cost of Hinkley - which cost has already doubled. But I would like to see your industry links. Mine was
http://www.powerengineeringint.com/articles/2015/05/rwe-s-nordsee-ost-wind-farm-inaugurated.html
@NLys. The Nordsee German offshore farm just started. Cost £3.4 million per MW. That's half the projected cost of Hinkley - which cost has already doubled.
And as the MW rating is at 100% but they normally only achieve 20% that's really £17M per MW.
With all these cheap gas flooding the markets a few extra Gas turbines is the cheapest solution, with coal cheaper too.
Harry Passfield wrote .....
Oi, Harry, what about my result in West Suffolk?
JF