Crossposted at Musings of a Mad Conservative.
During his State of The Union Address, Barack Obama told us, that we were facing our Sputnik moment. The seminal moment for our generation, when our adversaries are on the verge of taking a technological lead on us in the race to become the preeminent power, in whatever the next frontier is to be, in regards to that new something which will determine economic, military, and technological success for several generations to come. Barack Obama identified that new field as, “Green Technology.” Putting aside for the moment how patently silly this actually is, why don’t we look at how the, “Green Economy,” is working out for those nations already employing it. This is what we can expect from the new, “green,” economy.
Hadyardhill in South Ayrshire, which is owned by SSE Renewables, was given £140,000 to stop producing energy, while Blacklaw windfarm in Lanarkshire – also owned by Scottish Power – was given £130,000.
The Millennium windfarm in the Highlands and Beinn Tharsuin, just north of Alness, each received £33,000 and £11,500 respectively.
Dr Lee Moroney, planning director for the REF, which has criticised subsidies to the renewable sector in the past, said: “The variability of wind power poses grid management problems for which there are no cheap solutions.
“However, throwing the energy away, and paying wind farms handsomely for doing so, is not only costly but obviously very wasteful.
“Government must rethink the scale and pace of wind power development before the costs of managing it become intolerable and the scale of the waste scandalous.”
The National Grid said the network had overloaded because high winds and heavy rain in Scotland overnight on 5 and 6 April produced more wind energy than it could use.
Spokesman Stewart Larque said: “One of our key roles is to balance supply and demand for energy.”
He added: “On the evening of the 5th into the 6th of April, the wind in Scotland was high, it was raining heavily, which also created more hydro energy than normal.”
Mr Larque said a transmission fault in the system meant the surplus energy could not be transferred to England and so generation had to be cut.
The fact is, the energy produced by wind farms is so unpredictable, even in Scotland which is known for its wind, that a conventional coal burning plant needs to produce electricity anyhow. Conservation, which is what the endgame for all of this nonsense is anyhow will only go as far as people are willing to go without. In other words, on a 95 degree day, those air conditioners are going on, while on cold days, so will the heat. People like having lights and T.V. When the coal burning power plant is producing enough to satisfy the needs of its community, the power produced by the wind turbines actually threatens to overload the system. Hence, the wind farms are paid to shut down. Not just a little money either, but huge sums. Question: How, even in the world of Socialist economics, does that serve to make energy more affordable? When you factor that in with the ridiculous subsidies being proposed to spur investment into this Unicorn inhabited world, coupled with the punitive taxation of those employing the conventional methods, this actually turns out to be the highest priced energy in conception. Factor in further the sad fact that for each, “Green Job,” created 3 jobs are lost, we are looking at some truly disastrous economic results.
Of course the other way of solving the problem is this:
The days of permanently available electricity may be coming to an end, the head of the power network said yesterday.
Families would have to get used to only using power when it was available, rather than constantly, said Steve Holliday, chief executive of National Grid. Mr Holliday was challenged over how the country would “keep the lights on” when it relied more on wind turbines as supplies of gas dwindled. Electricity provided by wind farms will increase six-fold by 2020 but critics complain they only generate on windy days.
Mr Holliday told Radio 4′s Today programme that people would have to “change their behaviour”. “The grid is going to be a very different system in 2020, 2030,” he said. “We keep thinking that we want it to be there and provide power when we need it. It is going to be much smarter than that.“We are going to change our own behaviour and consume it when it is available and available cheaply.”
Mr Holliday was speaking ahead of a speech last night to the Royal Academy of Engineering, in which he warned that the government was “looking more to communities and individuals to take power into their hands”.
He also warned that pylons would still be used to carry power cables across the countryside because it was 10 times more expensive to bury them.“As a society, we all need to be clear about what we can and cannot afford,” he said.
I was thinking of calling Barack Obama and telling him that I am planning on opening a business which does not manufacture cars. By this line of thinking, I should be raking in the dough by the end of the year. Any suggestions of which kinds of cars I should not make? My thinking is that the left hates SUV’s anyhow, so I will not make any of those. Anyone up for joining that business? We could call it Nobama Motors. It should be a huge success, at least until someone sane wins an election.
Special Note: Nobama Industries would not necessarily be limited to not making cars, I am sure we could open many divisions which would not make a lot of things. Then we could get the left’s only economist, Paul Krugman, to write a dozen position papers stating that this was a more efficient use of resources and would save us money on our budget deficit. This would be apropos, since we would be spending money we did not have on goods we were not going to make.
Hat tip to Yenta-fada.
Tags: Green Energy
