The peak electricity demand in Britain is in the winter when we need to heat our homes, offices, shops, warehouses, factories etc. But in the winter solar farms produce almost no electricity in Britain. This is because it is dark for around 16 hours a day and when the Sun does appear it is weak and usually hidden behind thick cloud. Solar energy may make sense in some countries, for example the countries of North Africa, but building solar farms in Britain is completely brainless.
The new Energy Secretary Ed Milliband has just given the green light to the biggest solar farm in the U.K. He claims that building the Sunnica solar farm in East Anglia will “cut bills for families”. As is often the case with politicians, the opposite is true. Because solar farms produce almost no electricity in the winter there will need to be back-up electricity generation. So essentially two electricity generation facilities will have to be built and operated, one for the summer and one for the winter. This will increase electricity bills for families not cut them.
Subsidies to companies operating solar farms and wind farms is one of the reasons electricity bills in Britain are already amongst the highest in the world. We pay five times as much for our electricity as China and twice as much as the USA. The pain that these high bills cause British families is of no concern to the small group of eco-zealots in Government and the TV news who peddle scare stories about global warming and tell half-truths about the cost of renewables. They want Britain to be a world leader in Net Zero and don’t care about the price the rest of us have to pay for this utterly pointless ambition. Britain is responsible for only 1% of global CO2 emissions so even if we achieved Net Zero tomorrow it would have no measurable impact on global temperatures.
Meanwhile the big CO2 emitters, like China (30% of global CO2 emissions) and the USA (10% of global CO2 emissions), move far more slowly towards Net Zero. They continue to build and operate fossil-fuel power stations. Unlike solar farms and wind farms, these power stations are both cheap and reliable, they work every hour of every day summer and winter. This is why the electricity bills for Chinese and American families are so much lower than the bills for British families.
Dr. John Fernley is a retired scientist.
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Well it looks like USA or Norway are the places to live. You could go for Iran or China, but aside from human rights, they don’t have a good standard of living.
“You could go for Iran or China, but aside from human rights, they don’t have a good standard of living.” Human Rights, standard of living? Don’t you mean UK?
USA is largely gas powered electrotype and they burn their own natural gas.
Norway has a lot of hydro.
The UK could burn its own gas, but…
And Germany is up there with UK, paying the same price for energy, partly due to ‘environmental’ reasons, partly due to its total subservience to USA.
Germany has now been tasked with identifying who blew up the Nord Stream pipeline, as if Chancellor Scholz did not already know. Here he is, standing next to Biden in the famous White House press conference held on 7th February 2022, acquiescing to Biden’s statement that Nord Stream ‘will no longer exist’ if Russia invades Ukraine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OS4O8rGRLf8.
Scholz: “… we are well prepared for far-reaching measures together with our allies, with our partners, with the US, and we will take all the necessary steps … we will be united, we will act together … and all the necessary steps will be done by all of us together …”.
In my opinion, a clear betrayal of the German people, depriving them of a prime source of cheap and reliable energy, leading (as in UK) to its total deindustrialization.
And where does Germany now import most of its LNG from? USA. What a coincidence!
Germany also has been remarkably stupid as regards wind power. There are around 40,000 wind turbines in Germany, and then they closed all of the Nuclear plants because of what happened at Fukushima. But that tidal wave that caused that accident in Japan was caused by an earthquake in an earthquake prone are called the Pacific Ring of Fire. Germany does not suffer from earthquakes so the decision to remove Nuclear was totally irrational. All of the 16,000 deaths were caused by the tidal wave, not by radiation, which shows how incredibly safe modern Nuclear is. Germany now has some of the highest electricity prices in the world and the UK now with eco socialists in power are heading down the same absurd path to impoverishment and the destruction of our Industrial base, and millions forced into energy poverty. ——–There has hardly ever been a politician so full of crap as Miliband
Thanks for the article. For me, the obvious question is this. What form of electricity generation does the government propose will be providing the ‘base load’ of the total requirements to ensure continued supply in all conditions? Unless I’m missing something here, renewables cannot do this.
No you are not missing something. Renewables cannot provide base load.
Not even sure how “renewable” they are given that they use and rely on raw materials that are presumably finite and may not be reusable
At the moment it’s gas, some of our nuclear and French nuclear and Norwegian hydro. I can’t see that changing.
Gas is the preferred one as it is easiest to fire up when the wind stops.
Yes I believe it’s the most flexible
Remember the ads for cooking with gas? “Don’t you just love being in control?”
Actually coal or nuclear is best for base load, because both are most efficient – energy and cost efficient – run steadily and continuously.
The same is true of gas – but the above two are less expensive – and gas can respond to sudden increase/decrease in demand more quickly and cheaply.
Do you really think these nitwits even know what base load is?
“The pain that these high bills cause British families is of no concern to the small group of eco-zealots in Government and the TV news who peddle scare stories about global warming and tell half-truths about the cost of renewables”.——–It is by no means a “small group”. The entire political class apart from the likes of Reform are in on this scam. Net Zero was waved through parliament in 2019 with no debate and no vote.
——Miliband and Labour will set about it all with more zeal than other parties and will pretend to save the planet harder and faster than the rest, but they are all in on it. In media, only Talk TV with the likes of Julia Hartley Brewer and to a lesser extent GB news will shed light on why this drive for renewables at break neck speed is insanity on stilts, and why the excuse for it all (climate change) is a crock of shit. All the other TV news channels, led from the font by activists like BBC and SKY News are ramming the phony climate crisis down the public’s throats, and sadly I reckon 90% of people just accept there is a climate problem. ——-As a friend of mine said recently to me “Why would they tell us there is a climate emergency if it isn’t true”? ——-People think this way because they cannot comprehend being lied to on such a scale. They think it is all about “science”, when infact it is the hijacking of science for political purposes.
The thing that makes me mad was an advert on the TV about a donkey sanctuary. Their costs are going up, like it is for all of use, and hence are suffering. Some people can be ideological and claim to be saving the planet (they are not), but there is a terrible terrible price to pay, with plenty of suffering as a result.
Also need to talk watch Ian Pilmer who does not hold his punches:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCjathuJHm0
I have one of his books- Green Murder which I am now reading, but it is quite think!
Thanks for the You Tube link – enjoyed it and had a few laughs at the same time!
Typo – I mean Quite thick- the size of the book that is.
If the eco zealots can win a judgement based on future carbon emissions of drilling, fracking or whatever, can we get a judgement on the carbon emissions it takes to produce each electric car, wind turbine or solar panel? Also have it printed on every one of those.
A photo of a Lithium or Cobalt Mine should also be stuck on there.
There are no “future carbon emissions” of “drilling, fracking and whatever.” This ‘judgement’ relies on two fallacies:
Argueing about this is obviously a bit useless when so-called judges are prepared to abuse their position for furthering politically motivated lies but it’s all ordinary people with no such positions can do.
Bring back the brabant. Simple machine that worked
Trabant?
Seem to recall they were two stroke, a type of ICE engine that has largely died out due to the pollution.
The Chinese government are about as interested in net zero as I am about attending a drag show. It’s a pantomime for Guardian journalists and the rest of the Cressidas and Noahs.
“for example the countries of North Africa”
Not so fast, hot countries are not suitable for solar panels because, believe it or not, they overheat and become damaged and less efficient
That’s why the Sahara is not deemed viable for them!
There are other options, just (conjecture) not other option requiring import of expensive high-tech products from China. For instance, mirrors can be arranged in a concave pattern to concentrate reflected sunlight on a water tank in the middle to turn the water into steam which then drives a turbine.
This is of course true- but eco-loonies don’t think sunshine causes heat – only Mankind and CO2 can do that.
Hot Countries also carry a lot of dust in the air which settles on solar panels reducing their conversion efficiency.
And… solar panels and sandstorms are nit a good pairing.
The whole Net Zero is fantasy not reality.
“So essentially two electricity generation facilities will have to be built and operated… “
We already have this – gas and remaining nuclear in constant back-up – which have to withdraw when the wind doth blow and the Sun doth shine, then reconnect when they doth not.
And ‘going forward’ every extra MW or GW of wind/solar added to the grid will require an additional MW or GW of gas to support it. The problem is will investors want to invest in new gas power stations which cannot give a good RoI and are to be phased out?
Not only are wind and solar subsidised, but also gas a nuclear which charge higher wholesale rates in order to recover lost revenue when they are not allowed to sell their product.
And since gas stations are still burning gas when not connected, and waste energy and thus burn more gas when they have to spool up and down their turbines it’s a case of Net Positive CO2 emissions.
So it’s costing more and yet not achieving the intended result.
CoVid
Post Office
Net Zero
Do they have anything in common?
Either one of two things will happen in the not-too-distant future if the irrational 2030 Net Zero target is relentlessly and unthinkingly pursued: 1. We will import vast proportions of oil and gas compared to current volumes, spiking the cost at the consumer end, or 2. We will simply outsource all British manufacturing overseas – since it can’t turn a profit if it’s all operating on renewables, and I can’t even begin to describe the pandemonium this will cause.
Of course, there’s a third option: abandon Net Zero.
Any publicly funded person spouting evident lies or absurdities must be charged with perjury and face the relevant prison relevant. This would remove the likes of Milliband from public discourse and stop them harming the country.
“Publicly funded persons” includes journalists and mass media editors whose money is derived from govt advertising or equivalent subsidies from mega-corporations.
Norway with 54% wind generated electricity, and few subsidies, has the highest electricity bills in the world.
It’s a scam – taxpayers/consumers are being fleeced, our industry destroyed and our current way of life downgraded by our political class/elites, who hate us.
Just out of interest here’s a little video of a typical US coal train. The video is 5 years old (sorry, can’t seem to find a newer one)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yadqgLBiO00&t=118s
as you can see from the title it’s almost 3 miles long. Consists of 294 wagons which I believe hold approx 70 tons each. That’s two loads (the comments say it’s two trains joined together) from one mine to one power station.
UK electricity is more expensive because Charles worked it out that way years ago. “Crown Estates” owns most sea beds, turbines installed there pay rent to Crown. As of 6/27/2013, Crown gets triple the market rate for their electricity: “Offshore wind farms will get triple the market rate at £155 per megawatt-hour in a deal described by City analysts as “astonishingly expensive”. The difference will be met by a subsidy from the taxpayer.”…UK Telegraph…https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/energy/10146403/Wind-farms-get-generous-subsidies-for-another-six-years.html