The International Energy Agency (IEA – not to be confused with the London think tank of the same initials) recently produced a report containing analyses and predictions of the global renewable energy sector. The “combined share in global electricity generation”, says the report, of solar PV and wind energy is “expected to rise from 15% in 2024 to 17% in 2025 and to above 19% in 2026 – up from 4% a decade earlier.”
Hailing the report’s findings, the £million/year UK Green Blob lobbying blog, CarbonBrief, produced the following chart, showing the growth in the performance of renewable energy versus hydrocarbon-fired power generation. “The IEA says that renewables could overtake coal as early as this year,” says the blog.
Well, maybe. But as Steve Loftus points out, whereas renewable technologies are lumped together in one category, hydrocarbon technologies are separated. Moreover, though the IEA’s analysis emphasises renewables as solar and wind, the CarbonBrief chart includes hydro.
This is important, because CarbonBrief’s influence on UK energy policy has been very clear. Its grantors, the European Climate Foundation, have through countless fake ‘civil society’ organisations successfully drafted and lobbied for countless tranches of EU and UK climate and energy policy over the previous three decades. And CarbonBrief was, of course, the origin of the claim that “wind power is nine times cheaper than gas” – a meme which politicians, activists and journalists mindlessly reproduce to this day.
The inclusion of hydropower in the category of “renewables” is misleading, not least because the Green
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Need to get Ben Pile & Chris Morrison in the MSM. The “climate” insanity needs exposing to the masses for what it is.
There is huge content of science on here today but the fact remains that BP just gave Miliband two fingers and in 2029, the electorate will also give two fingers to the Labour Party.
Or if 75% of demand is eliminated the hydrocarbons need not be used. Now how on earth could that target be achieved?
“… Greens will typically cry out here that the “wind is free”
So are coal and gas and indeed all resources, the cost is in what is involved to take them from point of origin and deliver them in a form which can be consumed and benefits Humans. The cost of wind is a huge capital cost plus the cost of spinning generators (mostly fossil fuel) feeding the grid to give stability and back-up without which their could be no wind or solar power.
The “renewables” cheat-sheet also includes “biomass” which is CO2 emitting when burnt and CO2 emitting in its production.
And…
‘Large-scale hydropower is a mature and effective generation technology, capable of producing cheap power without massive subsidies.’
No it is not! There are huge hidden subsidies, but in a form that is rarely revealed in the planning process. In my view, hydropower is probably the most destructive ‘renewable’ source of energy. Every hydro scheme of any significant size permanently destroys existing stable complex dynamically complex self-renewing aquatic ecosystems. Many destroy the very existence of both natural and human-managed ecologies, hundreds or even thousands of kilometres downstream. For example, the agricultural capacity of the Bangladesh floodplain is threatened by the proliferation of hydro schemes on the upper Jamuna River, while the mad rush to build multiple hydro schemes in the Lower Mekong Basin destroyed the entire Tonle Sap fishery in Cambodia, together with much of the Mekong River fishery itself.
Such environmental disasters are repeated all over the world, and yet still hydro is presented to gullible politicians as an environmentally ‘friendly’ and ‘sustainable’ proposition – it is neither. In environmental terms, it is not a ‘renewable’ source of energy. Yes, it may have a long life, but it’s not then replaceable, except by renewing the original dam. Some supermarkets promoting… Read more »
The first hydro power installations were water wheels to run flour mills, cotton mills, etc which caused little if any negative effects on local environments.
Hydro, wind and solar, have limited small scale use for very localised projects, but large scale causes considerably more environmental damage – and cost – than supposedly they are meant to prevent.
The fuels for wind and solar may be “free,” but so too are coal, oil, gas, and the gravity that powers hydroelectric dams. The real cost lies in the gathering, conversion, and infrastructure — and in that respect, wind and solar farms are no different. They’re just another system for harvesting and converting a naturally occurring energy source. The notion that wind and solar are uniquely “free” is nothing more than twaddle.
Agreed – they also ‘harvest’ the various subsidies as well, that’s got to be a large proportion of the income. Non renewables also end up ‘harvesting’ additional tax liabilities, having inverse effect… what a screwed up world we live in
Excel tells me a loan of $3689 at 6% interest paid off over 20 years will cost $321.62 a year. For a load factor of 30%, the interest and repayment of the loan costs 12 cents per KW/hr or $122.38 per MWhr.
For solar, the figures are $130.95 per year and $149.49 per MWhr (10% load factor)
For a gas-burner operaing at 80% load factor, we get a capital cost of $10.40 per MWhr, to which we must add the cost of gas. This is where the US benefits from lower gas prices due to fracking. For the US the cost of gas per MW of electricity will be $20 or so. In Europe, more like $80.
South Korea has been building 1400MW nuclear plants for $6 billion. The same calculation with a 90% load factor yields a capital cost of $47.39 per MWhr. Nuclear plants have lasted 50 years and the fuel is cheap.
“South Korea has been building 1400MW nuclear plants for $6 billion.”
Grok:-
“The [South Korean ] government facilitated loans, subsidies, and regulatory support to ensure the economic viability of nuclear projects, particularly during the early decades when infrastructure was being established.
• In 2025, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy announced KRW150 billion (USD103 million) in financial support for the nuclear industry, an increase of KRW50 billion from 2024. This funding targets small and medium-sized nuclear companies through low-interest loans (1-2%) for facility investment and operating funds, distributed via eight commercial banks.
• In 2023, the Ministry of SMEs and Startups committed KRW675 billion (USD515 million) over five years to elevate local nuclear companies to global standards, focusing on small modular reactors (SMRs) and export competitiveness.
• President Yoon Suk-yeol’s administration, elected in 2022, reversed the previous government’s nuclear phase-out policy and committed KRW2,000 billion annually to nuclear energy, with KRW400 billion specifically for SMR development.”
So have you added in the cost to taxpayers and consumers for the same boondoggle scam for nuclear as for wind and solar?
Nuclear is the most expensive spinning generation. If it were not so, subsidies and price guarantees would not be necessary. Coal and gas… Read more »
Whether or not governments genuinely are ‘feckless’ [rather than deliberately manipulative], there’s no doubt that most of the population in the First World have been swayed by green nonsense for far too long. And the more we ‘educate’ them [Blair’s 50% policy…] the more feckless the population seem to get. I work in the energy investment sector, we have no illusions about what green means – an opportunity to make risk free 15%+ returns, underwritten by taxpayers and consumers who are being misled by government policy and by Ofcom [in the UK]. Greenies might like to reflect on the fact that UK domestic electricity is the most expensive in the world. And until Nut Zero is changed, it is only getting worse
Given you work in the investment sector, I assume you’ve seen the investments fall
off a cliff with the latest auctions / bids? It seems the price points offered no longer offer profit, once all costs are taken into account…?
I was wondering if some ‘investors’ may still wish to invest as a way of offsetting some other profitable income…
For each phase of renewables for the last 20 years or so there has been a way to make money out of the fact that clueless governments are messing around in markets which they don’t understand. The things to invest in change – but they still exist, right to this day
“And the more we ‘educate’ them [Blair’s 50% policy…] the more feckless the population seem to get. “
Of course! More fall into the State propaganda machine for longer.
“… underwritten by taxpayers and consumers…”
Which are being removed, and why options to build more wind and solar are getting no takers, and why businesses like BP, banks and investment funds are heading to the exits away from Green investment.
It isn’t them being “feckless”. —–It is them blindly adhering to the UN Sustainable development Agenda which says that the wealthy west has used more than its fair share of the fossil fuels in the ground in becoming prosperous and MUST STOP. Our lifestyles are unsustainable, using private cars, central heating, air conditioning, high meat intake etc, and absolutely everything has to be seen through its carbon output. Since all human activity involves the release of some CO2 then all human activity must be controlled and emissions reduced. It is an eco socialist scam and UK Politicians like Miliband are fully onboard with scamming their own citizens to get a little gold star on their lapel from the UN/WEF