Learning from history and from our own experience is usually reckoned a sign of wisdom. Strangely, that appears not to be the view of those employed at Carbon Brief. They have published a strikingly foolish prediction that renewable generation such as offshore wind will be vastly cheaper than gas generation in the late 2020s. That is a long way off. History tells us that price booms in oil and gas markets are invariably followed by price busts.
Carbon Brief’s argument is based on bids submitted by offshore wind farms in the latest round of the U.K. Government’s auction of Contracts for Difference (CfD), which were announced in July 2022. Carbon Brief claims that the average price of £48 per megawatt hour (MWh) in today’s money is “nine times cheaper” than the £446 per MWh current cost of running gas-fired power stations. For context, and so as not to mislead the naïve, including those who enthusiastically tweeted approval of Carbon Brief’s article, it might also have noted that the cost of running gas-fired power stations in April 2020 was less than £25 per MWh. That figure was, of course, inflated by the high cost of buying carbon dioxide permits.
In other words, the CfD bids were nearly double the recent cost of gas-fired generation, with every reason to suppose that the current prices are an exceptional not a permanent feature of the landscape. Experience tells us that extremely high prices often come down sharply when the crisis passes. Perhaps the Carbon Brief authors have never studied the charts of oil and gas prices since 1970. They should, and so should those who rely on their reports.
Such figures clearly demonstrate that oil and gas prices are highly cyclical. This is why learning from experience matters. Over the last 50 years there have been repeated periods when gas prices are high. At such junctures, doomsters, with U.K. politicians and civil servants prominent among them, declare that gas prices will remain high for the foreseeable future, only to go very quiet once prices start to fall again. One such episode was in the late 2000s and early 2010s when the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), the predecessor to the Department of Business Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), dogmatically persisted with forecasts of future gas prices that were between three and four times the actual prices.
The error made by DECC at that time – and its refusal to change course – is the fundamental reason why we are paying such a high price for electricity today. Rather than underwrite the replacement of older gas-fired power plants, to improve fleet efficiency and reduce costs, they pretended that onshore and offshore wind would fill the gap. Further, they resisted making a commitment to long term contracts to buy liquefied natural gas (LNG), and exposed the U.K. to the more volatile short term markets. As a result, generators are paying much higher prices for gas and using it in power plants that operate at much lower levels of efficiency – and much higher levels of carbon dioxide emissions than is necessary. But for DECC’s errors in the 2010s we would not be facing such a severe crisis this winter and the longer term cost of operating the U.K.’s gas-fired generation fleet would be much cheaper than it is today.
Carbon Brief’s approach is a classic case of bad analysis resulting from a narrow view of the data record. This matters because, prompted by the arguments presented by Carbon Brief, politicians and lobbyists for renewable energy would have us repeat all of the errors made by DECC, plus a few more into the bargain. Rather than cherry-picking odd weeks of data in the middle of a crisis we should consider what we can learn from the period up to the end of 2019. From 2015 to 2019 the average market price at 2020 prices in the Netherlands, weighted by wind generation, was €41.7 per MWh – equivalent to £35.3 per MWh. The Dutch price is a good benchmark since that system relies heavily on gas, and the European benchmark for gas prices is set in the Netherlands, so it is the best reference point for what gas-fired electricity generation actually costs in normal conditions. During this same period the U.K. was paying CfD prices in the range from £150 to £187 per MWh at today’s prices to offshore wind farms and from £96 to £105 per MWh to onshore wind farms. For the avoidance of doubt: in the period 2015 to 2019 the U.K. CfD prices for offshore wind were four to five times that of gas fired generation.
In this historical context it is clear that Carbon Brief are just speculating that onshore and offshore wind farms projected for completion between 2024 and 2027 will deliver power at either a third (for offshore wind) or a half (for onshore wind) of the prices that they were receiving as recently as 2015-2019. We confidently predict that large flocks of pigs will also be seen flying across the skyline.
But a further question arises: What is this promised low price actually worth?
The CfD is a ‘contract’, but are consumers guaranteed delivery of specified amounts of power? No. There is no obligation to deliver electrical energy, only an entitlement to a certain price should the wind farm choose to deliver.
Do we know whether the wind farms will actually be built by the dates promised? No. We have no idea when they will be completed, if at all.
Will the power be delivered at the times and places where we need it, as a proper commodities contract might require so much copper to be free on board in a particular port on a particular date? No. The ‘contracts’ make no such requirement of the offshore wind farms.
Are we sure that we will only pay the strike price of £48 per MWh for the power? No. The wind farms have the choice of either taking up the price they are entitled to under the ‘contract’ or of taking a market price, through a bilateral Power Purchase Agreement with a greenwash thirsty corporate for example.
Obviously, the ‘Contracts for Difference’ are not contracts in any sense that a layman would recognise as a commitment to meet our future need for power. In any other business, professionals would see them as ludicrously one-sided and open-ended.
Furthermore, comparing the delivered cost of power from gas power stations with the strike prices for wind power in CfD contracts is not even like comparing apples and pears. Those are both fruits. Instead the comparison is more like that between apples and elephants, which have no practical similarity in any respect.
Carbon Brief also claims that the renewable generators with CfD contracts for delivery from 2024 onwards will pay large amounts of money back to the Treasury, because their ‘contract’ price will be so much lower than the market price. That is pure delusion. Anybody with commercial experience will see that the CfD contracts are ‘put options’ – they give the right but not the obligation to sell power at the strike price. We have seen in the last year that some wind farms have started to generate power but have not exercised their CfD contracts because the market prices that they expect to earn are so much higher than the CfD strike price. This is entirely up to them: the ‘contracts’ allow them to defer the start date or, indeed, to simply abrogate the agreement. One wonders who drafted these ‘contracts’ – the office cat?
Obviously, if market prices in 2024 and after are higher than the strike prices, then no wind farms will actually exercise their option by commencing their contracts. It seems reasonable to conclude that the wind farms regard their CfDs as nothing more than an insurance option, a guaranteed price if they can’t find a better one.
Consequently, the CfD auction results tell us almost nothing about what it will really cost to build and operate wind farms in the second half of the 2020s. And as audited financial statements accounts show, there is strong evidence to suggest that the capital and operating costs of wind farms have not in fact fallen by anything like the magnitude that would be needed to make economic a price of £48/MWh as bid in the latest auctions.
There is another important though less obvious point. Everyone knows that both wind and solar power are intermittent, which means that they are often not available when demand is high. In contrast, the output of gas-fired generation can be adjusted to meet such variations in demand; gas-fired generation is said to be dispatchable. At the moment, and for at least another 10 or 15 years, perhaps for the foreseeable future, the U.K. system will have to rely upon gas generation to offset the intermittency of wind and solar output. Flexing a generator in this way costs money – a lot of money!
Some of these additional costs are reported as they form part of the overall cost of balancing the electricity system and keeping the lights on. Our analysis shows that the extra cost of system balancing to manage the intermittency of renewable generation may be as high as £40-50 per MWh at high levels of wind and solar generation. This cost could be reduced by altering the system of constraint payments but there seems to be little will to do this in the near future. And even if constraint payments were reduced to zero, balancing costs would remain high.
Furthermore, a larger part of the system costs of managing intermittency is hidden and arises as a consequence of treating gas generation as a second-class citizen. There is no long term incentive to invest in more efficient plants. On top of this, plants incur significant operational and maintenance costs for starting up and stopping frequently. At a minimum these hidden costs add 25-30% to operating costs for gas generation. The hidden cost is probably at least £20-25 per MWh of wind and solar generation but could be substantially more than that.
Together the balancing and other system costs that result from higher levels of wind and solar generation mean that the full cost of any power provided by the new CfD contracts will be at least double the notional price of £48 per MWh, even assuming that this price is viable, which we doubt.
It is difficult to avoid concluding that the whole story of the falling costs of renewable generation is sheer fantasy, a sort of energy industry Game of Thrones taking place in a parallel universe that bears an accidental similarity to our own world.
There is a better way of managing contracts for renewable generation. Ask generators to bid for fixed amounts of dispatchable or firm power with specific deadlines, delivery requirements and performance guarantees, backed up by severe penalties to protect the consumer from non-delivery. It would be the renewable generator’s responsibility to organise storage and whatever else is necessary to convert intermittent renewable generation into the equivalent of gas generation.
Until we have robust performance-based contracts for the dispatchable delivery of renewable electricity we have no way of assessing the real cost of reliance on renewable generation. Fantasies based on the current ‘contracts for difference’ auctions, such as those of Carbon Brief, are not a sound basis for evaluating the current policies.
Professor Gordon Hughes teaches Economics at the University of Edinburgh, and was a senior adviser on energy and environmental policy at the World Bank until 2001. He is the author of Wind Power Economics: Rhetoric & Reality (Renewable Energy Foundation: 2020), amongst many other publications in this sector.
Dr. John Constable is the Director of the U.K. charity Renewable Energy Foundation, and the author of Europe’s Green Experiment (GWPF, 2022).
Stop Press: A wind turbine in Wales was toppled by too much wind after 50mph gusts caused it to “overspeed”. The Telegraph has more.
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Whilst I’m sure the guts of this article are correct I’m not sure there is now much value in getting in the knotted weeds if it all. COVID was never a huge threat and was all a massive scam to make RNA vaccine makers/sellers colossal sums of cash. WW1 was probably the same for the armaments industry, the state weaponised against ppl.
Indeed, I’m of the opinion that almost all publicly available information is expressly designed to propagandize i.e. tell you what you’re supposed to think. Those of us who had become aware of the lies and deceit going on with regard to climate change almost instantly spotted the same techniques with covid.
With the ongoing release of the Twitter files we’re seeing how social media is controlled, and of course this is happening with all forms of media, including search engines and Wikipedia. Absolutely nothing can be trusted to be reliable or truthful or even-handed.
In fact I pretty much take the view that all popular narratives on every subject are lies, designed to manipulate the public in the interests of those with power and control, and none of it is ultimately in our interests.
Covid, climate, Ukraine/wherever the PTB are currently laundering the public’s wealth, nations/borders/immigration, the illusion of democracy, globohomo/feminism/trans/gender, race/racism, religion… this is not by any means a comprehensive list!
In fact I pretty much take the view that all popular narratives on every subject are lies,
And that is exactly where I am at. Prior to the Scamdemic I tended to take a sceptical view of anything from “officialdom.” As the Scamdemic rolled out and I knew it was being rolled out my view that everything from officialdom was a lie was sealed. Now there is no going back.
Sadly, I am now at the point where I am questioning every aspect of our history:
The Miners strike.
World War ll
World War l
And so on.
Yes it was a huge scam and not a threat to the vast majority. It is also my theory that flu never did ”disappear”, conveniently usurped by this one virus to rule them all! Perhaps any doctors on here can attest to the fact flu was being tested for, because it would seem that every other respiratory virus legged it and the myopic focus was on Covid and solely testing for this particular virus. I think all existing influenza like illnesses ( ILI ) got attributed to Covid as a way of increasing the fear and hysteria ( and those all important numbers ) so that people would be more inclined to take a jab as soon as they were available. It’s really shameful that the vast majority of people ( including doctors, remarkably ) fell for this hoax hook, line and sinker. After all, ”you can’t find what you’re not looking for.” So if all they tested for was Covid and nothing else what did people really think was going to happen? Cue your casedemic right there.
If you designed PCR tests for every known virus and dialled up the thresholds I wouldn’t be at all surprised to discover that we’re all walking plague-ships, carrying around a host of bugs at any moment in time.
When you’re under the weather, run down, stressed, lacking essential vitamins etc. one of them will overcome the immune system and you come down with something.
I seem to remember an incidence in some god-forsaken place like an arctic research station, where everyone had been quarantined before visiting and they still had an outbreak.
Indeed. I read the Arctic story. Of course they couldn’t stop shoving sticks up their noses even when ‘on station.’
Bloody crackers.
That’s part of the reason I wrote this series.
Covid never was a huge problem, but the vaccines have introduced a different set of problems.
We’ve just seen the UK government sign an agreement with Moderna to produce 250 million doses of mRNA vaccines a year targeting a series of viruses, yet the experience of the one mRNA vaccine that has been developed is negative.
I note that it usually takes at least 10 years to go from candidate vaccine to authorisation for use (outside of clinical trials), thus this agreement is very troubling. Are we going to find that they say that the technology is ‘safe and effective’ and thus new vaccines can be produced based only on an antibody response? I also fear that if they’ve signed up to 250 million doses they’ll want to make sure that they’re getting ‘good value for money’, so perhaps there’ll be a more than a little encouragement to make sure that none of these doses are wasted…
Precisely. The fact, which is totally irrefutable at this point in time, that their precious, much-hyped, “only way out of this pandemic”, magic-bullet gene-therapies fell way short of their “safe and effective” advertising slogan hasn’t stopped them plowing on with the agenda and creating yet more mRNA toxic bioweapons says it all really doesn’t it?
And at what point do the various adverse event reporting systems get ditched as, much like the regulators, they appear to be mere theatre and neither use nor ornament. It’s business as usual and “carry on regardless” for these criminal psychos.
Thanks for another thorough deep dive article Amanuesis. I wondered what you think of Igor Chudov’s latest, where he cites a study about immune tolerance, whereby your body cannot effectively clear the virus, being responsible for excess mortality. It’s very interesting;
https://igorchudov.substack.com/p/booster-caused-immune-tolerance-explains
He also shows data from Germany, comparing regions within the country, which appears to demonstrate a high correlation between booster rate and excess mortality rate;
https://igorchudov.substack.com/p/covid-boosters-are-killing-germans
The substack from Igor, referencing work by Rintrah Radagast, seems to be very important. If they are correct, it would explain the increase in rates or RSV and the anecdotal increase in people either getting Covid repeatedly or just getting ill and not clearing the virus. Certainly almost everyone I speak to at work is either ill or getting over something. Now perhaps that is confirmation bias but if you take it together with the data on excess mortality and the statistics on hospital admissions, it is very concerning indeed. If only someone had warned them that carrying out an experiment on billions of people at the same time was not a smart move.
“If only someone had warned them that carrying out an experiment on billions of people at the same time was not a smart move.”
I don’t believe they carried out an experiment. Whatever happened was intended to ensure that everybody accepted the injections.
On that, fortunately, it failed.
It is rather troubling. IgG4 induced tolerance would lead to a subset (probably not all) suffering from symptomless chronic infection (similar to Typhoid Mary) and thus acting as a viral reservoir ensuring that Covid continues to circulate at very high levels. I note that the ‘mainstream view’ of Covid is that it is ‘serious Covid’ that results in hospitalisation/death, but that is an immune over-reaction to the infection which is going to be far less likely in those tolerant of their infection — instead you’ll see problems emerging due to long term high(ish) viral loads. I suspect that this will result in higher risk of cardiac problems and possibly neurological problems, but the (potentially) longer term viral loads could result in a variety of problems.
What’s so remarkable is the evidence that is emerging of a wide range of immune problems post vaccination, including tolerance, autoantibodies, other autoimmune problems, etc.
I am assuming that these figures relate to people hospitalised with a positive Covid 19 test and suffering from a respiratory infection.
There must therefore be further cases to add to this grim toll from people suffering from all forms of vaccine damage.
It is worrysome that there’s so little investigation into how the problems that we’re seeing in the population might correlate with vaccination status.
And I think that’s not going to change, even more worryingly, considering the imminent growth of the mRNA vax industry. Trying to be more realistic than pessimistic here but it’s become a fine line between the two.
Indeed, but sadly it’s not a surprise. The covid scam seems to me unique certainly in the history I’m aware of in its scope, globally, politically and institutionally and among the general population. Normally with some kind of fraud or conspiracy or folly there are significant forces who opposed it or didn’t go along with it who have some incentive to expose the truth. With covid, can anyone think of a significant body of any kind (state, media, academia, business, public health, science, the general population, judiciary, political opposition etc) that was not an enthusiastic supporter of lockdowns and vaccines? A few maybe, but a vanishingly small number. There’s simply no incentive for anyone to break ranks, even among the public who probably know in their hearts that they’ve been had.
I’m sure that the MHRA/Dame June Raine and the UKHSA/JCVI Dr Jenny Harries are well aware of this data.
I have every confidence that if they thought there was absolutely anything in these figures to worry about they would have immediately alerted the public.
We should have every confidence; after all they are fully independent and the head of those bodies have never had any ties or allegiances whatsoever.to pharmaceutical companies.
Anyone who suggests otherwise is guilty of spreading misinformation.
On a serious note – a big thank you Amanuensis for all the hard work, knowledge and wisdom which you so ably impart.
Don’t overdo elementary irony. Eventually, no one will be sure whether you mean what you say, at face value. or the opposite.
Apologies for the lack of activity from myself on these pages for a fair few weeks; a combination of being unable to login and then pay my donation has kept my razor sharp comments and insights from the board
TBH, I am so tech illiterate I am surprised that I manage to function on the net at all!
Firstly, another brilliant article, thank you @Amanuensis. Secondly, a belated “hello again” and “Merry Xmas” to all the regulars here for continuing to fill BTL with such pertinent observations; even when previously active on the site I found little need to comment often because pretty much everyone who contributes says exactly what I would wish to say, but does it a whole lot better.
Having, with a few exceptions, cleansed myself of contact with people that I see as covid fanatics, (my mum, my partner, my brother are all unjabbed….I rarely hear any pro covid narrative face to face anymore),it is less usual now for me to encounter any jaw dropping bits of nonsense, even through my infrequent visits to the MSM, (to see what the enemy are up to).
This however, gave me a reality check, (as i suppose I live in a bit of a covid/climate change/ukraine, it’s all a load of shite bubble), at just the sheer lack of insight going on.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-63987721
Sadly, there must be tens of thousands of useful idiots in the country like this, with a trail of devastation in their wake that is completely invisible to them. Obviously avoided any kind of discussion about the injuries she may have caused and presenting herself to readers with a sense of pride and achievement.
The BBC of course will know that these people have ruined the lives of many, but shamelessly parade these “heroes” for the rest of the sheep to admire.
Sorry, have rabbited on a bit much; must be the euphoria of managing to finally get back on DS!
Welcome back. I have avoided everything about the BBC for getting on five years now. It started with cancelling my tv licence but soon extended to any and all BBC content and specifically the website. Everything they do now is little more than propaganda.
Yep, license cancelled about a year and a half ago, never watch or listen to their programmes, (even the so called “entertainment” is thinly disguised propaganda), but I do very infrequently check out what their “news” output is doing. Forewarned is forearmed sort of thing.
Anyway, thanks for the welcome back
I actually feel a bit sorry for these ‘footsoldiers’ — they genuinely believe that they’re doing good; I imagine that many will be horrified when (if) the problems introduced by the vaccination campaign become accepted.
Those in positions of power (that should have been more careful); those politico-scientists that pushed an untested solution to an exaggerated problem; the media darlings and celebrities that pushed something they didn’t understand; the scientists that took the money and turned a blind eye — they’re far more guilty of creating the mess that we’re in.
My main worry is that the problems/dangers of the mRNA vaccines will never be accepted.
Bigpharma have had decades of being able to swat aside criticisms. They seeped into med. schools and government after WW2 (A Big Thank You to the Rockefellers) and have been ably assisted by the likes of Gates, Blair, Fauci ever since.
Capturing the MSM was a cake walk.
That’s what we’re up against.
Most of the sheep now just want to forget and “move on”.
The mRNA platform has been deemed safe – so shortly there will be a jab rolled out for every “disease” they can think of.
I’m sorry to say it, but imho the only chance we have of opening eyes is that the deaths and chronic illnesses increase vastly to the extent whereby even the likes of the BBC can’t ignore the culprit.
Oh I’m sure these criminals will continue to declare their “countermeasures” safe even if the excess mortality and low birth rates continue throughout 2023. They’d deny all causality if they were stepping over dead bodies in the street, such is their wicked objective and total lack of conscience or ethics.
But one thing they can’t bank on is the same amount of dozy muppets believing their abject lies and swallowing the propaganda now as did in 2020. They can spout all the claptrap they like but nobody’s obliged to believe it or comply with it. I refuse to believe people are as naive or thick as they were at the beginning. It’s our only hope really because certainly nobody in authority is coming to save us or put a stop to this blatant democide.
With the possible exception of Ron DeSantis. We’ll see.
Agree to some extent about those in “command” of the “footsoldiers”, (to keep the military analogy going) are more culpable, but surely the trained nurses and medics “firing the rounds”, must know they are doing wrong?
Most will have had the (dubious) advantage of being better educated than a lot of us who have called this as a scam from the start.
Myself…factory worker, no degree, my brother…empties the bins, my mum….untrained care worker, plus a few of the delivery guys that come to us, the guy that runs the chipper….and so on…..not particularly academic, but bright enough to immediately see the big lie.
I’m not disagreeing with your point, but experienced and supposedly well trained “health professionals”….I expected better, (as we all did).
Welcome back BTW. I’ve not seen your name round these parts for a looong time!
Cheers! Been reading the comments section most days and enjoying the stuff yourself and the other regulars are consistently posting….thanks for that!
A fitting epitaph for these official reports. And with a small revision could probably sum up the UKHSA itself.
Thank you for all of the hard work and interpretations that you have done.
You should not vaccinate when the pathogen is proliferating, for the same reason you should not over-use antibiotics; you simply stimulate the emergence of new variants that are immune to this year’s vaccine.
Former top White-House aide Dr Paul Alexander has said the pandemic will never end like this. Every year brings a new variant needing a new vaccine.
The tole of natural immunity is being outsourced to Pharma.
Every year, measles used to kill perhaps 2 in a million children who did not inherit natural immunity from their mothers. Now, no child inherits natural immunity: vaccination has eradicated it, clearing the field for vaccine profiteering.
Dream marketing, if you are wicked.
In the 1870s, a campaign in England began against smallpox vaccination, which had been compulsory by law for 50 years. You went to prison if you refused. The campaign slogan was ‘Fraud, Force, Failure’. The vaccine manufacturers were making fortunes, take-up was mandatory, and huge smallpox outbreaks still occurred.
Plus ca change!
I worry that we’re moving from a massive industrial-military complex that influences world affairs to make things worse and make huge profits,
to a massive industrial-medical complex that influences world affairs to force their ‘solutions’ to make things worse and make huge profits.
Then again, I suppose we’ll merely end up with both.
The Medical-Pharmaceutical-Government Complex.
The public health industry, allied to the “safety” industry, will doubtless continue to expand and talk up the “need” for them to have more money and power. Safetyism is destroying Western civilisation.
As well as vaccinating during an epidemic being contraindicated, RNA viruses mutate and evolve so quickly that vaccination even outside an epidemic is useless as it only encourages new vaccine-resistant mutants to emerge and circulate. Vaccination then gives a false sense of security.
And this is precisely why it is not UK practice to mass vaccinate animals against Foot & Mouth disease – caused by an RNA virus. We know it doesn’t work in animals, so why should it work in Humans?
It is also why there are no effective vaccines against the plethora of other respiratory viruses and we have a pretend vaccine for ‘flu which despite decades of vaccinating with ‘new’ vaccines, ‘flu still circulates some years serious, other years not and the money-making band wagon continues on.
Measles: fatalities from Measles were in significant decline prior to the use of vaccines, most probably due to better nutrition and hygiene. If vaccines eliminated Measles, why is nearly every young child still being vaccinated?
The link between vaccination and reduction of presence of pathogens or reduction in fatalities is only ever considered in isolation of other factors such as sanitation, hygiene, nutrition, treatments and is over-estimated, but it is good business for Big Pharma.
It would be interesting to see research into why there has been a steady increase in cases of asthma and food allergies concomitant with increased, multiple vaccinations of children – given that vaccines mess with undeveloped immune systems in children.
http://vaccinepapers.org/
Beware the adjuvants.
Aka known as the dirty secret of immunologists/vaccinologists.
The amazing thing is that nobody knows the precise way in which they work ie keep the immune system boosted against the supposed pathogen.
But hey, never mind the “side” effects – they’re mainly years down the line – so nobody takes notice.
Government Reports reveal covid jab failure. Sadly this will hardly be reported in the media. Health propaganda requires constant medical intervention, whereas good health doesn’t.
If anyone needs someone to talk to we meet every Sunday.
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Wokingham RG40 2FE