Greening and de-industrialisation

This is a very quick post, but I could not help but comment on this snippet I saw on Watts Up With That. The snippet refers to a full article that can be found at the Global Warming Policy Foundation, which is a translation of an article from a German newspaper (a long explanation of source, sorry). Below are some key quotes from the article, which are all referring to the ‘green’ energy policies adopted in Germany:

Today it is obvious that Merkel has promised too much. Energy prices in Germany are increasing dramatically – by 57 percent in just the past ten years – and not least because the state is one of the biggest drivers of cost. Taxes and duties on electricity prices have now risen to 23.7 billion Euros p.a. – an increase of just over 1,000 percent within 15 years. The levies on electricity look more like a special energy tax, which is higher than the revenue from tobacco and motor vehicle taxes combined. [and]

German industry, in particular, is suffering from high electricity prices. Most affected are the chemical, metal and paper industries. In the aluminium industry, the electricity costs amount to about 40 percent of total costs.

All industries complain; some companies have already closed down: the aluminium smelter Voerdal in the Lower Rhine town of Voerde recently filed for bankruptcy because of high energy prices. The U.S. chemical giant Dow Chemical currently operates 17 plants with more than 5,000 employees in Germany. “Because of the green energy transition I get increasingly critical questions from our corporate headquarters in the US about whether energy supply in Germany is still possible at competitive prices,” said Germany boss Ralf Brinkmann. [and]

“The de-industrialization has already begun,” Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger has warned in an interview with the Handelsblatt. Hans Jürgen Kerkhoff, President of the Steel Trade Association, complains: “The levels of industrial electricity prices are higher here than in most other countries.” [and]

It is really not complicated. If you increase the cost of energy, the more intensive the energy user, the more likely they will decamp to another location. Of course, this means no net decrease in the amount of carbon dioxide, as this is just a displacement of activity. It just means that one country’s de-industrialisation is another’s industrialisation.

The question is; is this what we want for New Zealand? The cost is pain for both business and households. More to the point, even where there is the possibility of potentially less expensive ‘green’ energy, fanatics such as the Green Party still seek to block the alternatives. The timing is perfect but the outcome is laughable. Just after I read the German article, I found this on the Climate Conversation Group, in reference to a proposed Meridian hydro electric project in New Zealand:

On the surface, this is an example of the extreme green position. Don’t touch the earth, don’t change it for any reason, never mind the benefits. Never mind that we have no other resources (there’s just the one planet, you know), but we can’t use these resources, because we’ll kill a few snails.

The Green Party is crowing about this victory, which is fair enough, but it says all rivers should be protected. This is wrong. The Mokihinui might have special qualities that deserve protection, but it would be anti-human to deny access to all rivers.

The Greens have campaigned against the use of the river for ‘renewable’ energy, in order to protect wildlife. At the same time they support the massively expensive use of wind and solar energy. What do they really want? The answer, in the end, is de-industrialisation. They never say it, but it can be the only outcome of their policy and approach. We can see the results in Germany. It takes time to start the de-industrialisation, but once started, it is hard to reverse. After all, once the companies are gone, are they likely to come back? The skills and knowledge to compete in the sector are lost, and hard to revive.

It really is time to wake up to the damage that so-called green energy policy will do. De-industrialisation can be the only outcome of an expensive energy policy, and this is what the Green Party, and their supporters, are pressing for in New Zealand.

Note: I have not looked at the economics of the case of the hydro-project, but am guessing that it would provide cheaper energy than wind/solar. However, readers should be cautious that this is no more than a guess. I would review the case but am short of time, and am guessing that the Climate Conversation Group were aware of the background for their post.

New Zealand Research and Climate Change

I have taken a leaf out of Jo Nova’s book, and thought I would take a quick look at research funding for climate change in New Zealand. I seem to recall that at some time, the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition has looked at this, so this might serve as an update. The only source I am looking at is the Ministry of Science and Innovation (MSI), and there will undoubtedly be other sources of funding that will be available. The MSI website has an excellent search function, and my first search was for the keywords ‘climate change‘, with no start or end date specified (the earliest grant was awarded in 1996). The results were a little startling, as follows:

Number of awards: 92,

Value of awards: $341,732,959.40

I also conducted a search for ‘climate change global warming’ and produced 7 results with a total value of £65 million. I have found some of the numbers to be a bit odd, but can only go assume that the information from the website is correct. I downloaded the results as a spreadsheet, and took a quick glance through the titles of the funded projects, and it seems that most of them were focused directly on climate change research. It will be unsurprising to find that National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research Ltd. (NIWA) was a major recipient, with grants as follows totalling $161,130,930. It will also come as no surprise to find that New Zealand universities were also each awarded several grants.

Other large grants were primarily awarded to crown research institutes; GNS Science Ltd. with over $36 million,  Landcare Research Ltd. with $54 million, AgResearch Ltd.  and Scion, both with just over $8 million, with some other examples of major grants being Industrial Research Ltd with about $4.5 million, New Zealand Institute for Crop and Food Research Limited with $22 million,  Institute of Environmental Science and Research Ltd. with about $3 million.
When looking at these grants, and the search term, it must be remembered that climate change is a real phenomenon. It is whether humans have a major impact on climate that is questionable. Nevertheless, I think we can safely assume that these grants are given based upon the latter point; that the grants are a response to the theory of anthropogenic climate change. The problem is that, NIWA’s data has shown that warming has come to a halt in New Zealand. As such, this research appears to be investigating a non-problem. And the cost of the research is huge.

I have reproduced one of the explanations of NIWA’s grants at the end of the post (I have added formatting for readability), and the original can be found here. The grant is for $29 million. If you read the grant explanation carefully, it is possible to find some very worrying justifications. As just one example, the Stern report is cited, which has been widely criticised as alarmist and unjustified on economic grounds, with the Cato Institute suggesting that Stern’s investment advice is ‘sheer lunacy‘. However, the main problem is that there is an absolute acceptance of anthropogenic global warming theory, and absolutely no discussion of any alternative or investigation of any alternative.

During economic ‘good times’, it may be less harmful to use money on wasteful research. However, these are not ‘good times’, but actually a time when the economy is going through a tough time. The only comfort in the search was that new grant starts seem to have reduced in size and quantity. However, having said this, a case might be made for new grants to investigate climate change. In particular, despite the NIWA grant proposing that they would provide a sound foundation for New Zealand policy, their work has been found to be biased (e.g. see here), and one of their key scientists has been shown to be biased in the extreme (actually participating in activity to get a skeptical scientist sacked from his job). Therefore, perhaps a grant to investigate the skeptical position is overdue?

NIWA’s Research Grant

The Drivers and Mitigation of Global Change (DMGC) programme serves to integrate research in the fields of stratospheric change, tropospheric composition and climate change, and atmosphere-surface interactions.

• It provides in-depth scientific understanding of the drivers of global environmental change.
• The programme provides an international context for the impacts of stratospheric and surface climate change on New Zealand’s environment, and an authoritative basis for the development of national and international policies to mitigate global change.
• The research directly serves New Zealand’s obligations under international treaties, including the Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer (and Montreal Protocol), the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (and Kyoto Protocol), and the Antarctic Treaty System.
• In addition to research on global scale issues, there are objectives that focus on topics of national importance, principally the emission of greenhouses gases from agriculture and the physical properties of solar/UV radiation because of their influence on the health of New Zealanders and the performance of construction materials and energy availability.

Thus the programme provides a sound basis for the management of New Zealand’s environment and economy, and information for improved policy development and societal decision-making. Over the term of this contract (2004 – 2007), the research has greatly improved understanding of the climate change issue. Global concern with respect to climate change is mounting in response to the:

• greater certainty in the science: it is regarded as extremely likely that humans have exerted a substantial warming influence on climate through combustion of fossil fuels (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; IPCC);
• widespread acceptance of the economic costs of climate change and that mitigation cost incurred over the next few decades could avoid the risks of very severe consequences in the future (Stern Report);
•  widespread recognition that major action to cut fossil CO2 emissions is needed within the next two decades in order to avoid dangerous climate change and/or global mean temperature increases of <3°C above pre-industrial levels (IPCC).

To help address the mounting concern by governments and the public at large on the impacts of global change, this programme provides essential physical data, models and interpretation of the processes that determine the human induced changes to the composition of the atmosphere and its radiative properties. Key personnel have been involved as lead and contributing authors in the 4th assessment report of the IPCC, the WMO 2006 Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion, and the 2006 UNEP Effects Panel, all released in 2007.

The Earth’s climate system is currently undergoing rapid change, primarily in response to changes in the natural abundance of long lived greenhouse gases (GHG)s. Global atmospheric concentrations of the most important GHGs (carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide) have increased markedly as a result of human activities since AD1750 and now far exceed the pre-industrial values obtained from ice cores spanning many 1000s of years. Measurements of carbon dioxide made at Baring Head, New Zealand, within this programme form the longest continuous baseline record in the Southern Hemisphere and are a key component of observational evidence in the IPCC’s 4th assessment report published in May 2007.

These data show that, despite the GHG emission limitations proposed in the Kyoto protocol, carbon dioxide concentrations, currently around 380 ppm, continue to increase at an exponential rate in the atmosphere. Concentration measurements at Baring Head are supported by carbon dioxide isotope and oxygen measurements to assist in determining the magnitude of source/sink processes in the carbon cycle. The programme also made a significant contribution to predictions of stratospheric ozone recovery. A key science member within the programme was lead author of the 2006 WMO Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion. This important document assesses the status of global ozone depletion and its impacts. At a national level, the programme not only monitors local stratospheric ozone levels, but also continues to measure and map solar and UV radiation over New Zealand.

This work is essential to understanding the impacts of UV on human health and materials. Recent work has highlighted the potential connection between very low winter UV and reduced population levels of vitamin-D in New Zealand. Further research on this issue is to be advanced with the health sector over the coming year. Science information resources: Water and Atmosphere: Greenhouse gas data: http://www.niwascience.co.nz/rc/prog/greenhouse/info/graphical Simple climate model: http://www.niwascience.co.nz/pubs/wa/14-4/climate Nitrous oxide: http://www.niwascience.co.nz/pubs/wa/15-2/oxide Ozone hole: http://www.niwascience.co.nz/pubs/wa/15-1/ozone UV radiation: http://www.niwascience.co.nz/rc/atmos/uvconference/ UV atlas: http://www.niwascience.co.nz/services/uvozone/atlas Ocean-atmosphere studies: http://www.niwascience.co.nz/rc/atmos/sage/intro Ocean gas exchange: http://www.niwascience.co.nz/pubs/wa/14-2/gas Iron fertilisation: http://www.niwascience.co.nz/pubs/wa/14-2/iron

 

The WWF and the cost of Climate Alarmism

What a strange body the WWF (formerly the World Wildlife Fund, now the Worldwide Fund for Nature) has become these days.

The quote above is from a recent column in the UK’s Daily Telegraph, from Christopher Booker. He points out the role of the WWF in promoting the global warming scare, the way in which WWF activists have infiltrated the IPCC, and other institutions of government and international agencies.  It is now, in many respects, more like a multinational corporation than the original conservation charity that it was when founded. What I found most interesting in his article was the following:

Last November, Prince Charles, as president of WWF UK, flew to Tanzania to hand out “Living Planet” awards to five “community leaders” involved in WWF projects around the delta of the Rufiji River, which holds the world’s largest mangrove forest. Part of their intention has been to halt further damage to the forest by local farmers, who have been clearing it to grow rice and coconuts. This is because the mangroves store unusual amounts of “carbon” (CO2), viewed as the major contributor to global warming. (Another WWF project in the delta is to find a way of measuring just how great a threat release of that CO2 might be.)

Shortly before the Prince’s arrival, it was revealed that thousands of villagers had been evicted from the forest, their huts in the paddy fields torched and their coconut palms felled. This was carried out by the Tanzanian government’s Forestry and Beekeeping Division, with which WWF has been working. But Stephen Makiri, the head of WWF Tanzania, was quick to insist that WWF had never advocated expelling communities from the delta, and that “the evictions were carried out by government agencies”.

One of my greatest concerns in the global warming scare is the harm that it does to so many people. Much of that harm is indirect, such as the impact of ‘biofuels’ on food prices. For those living in poverty, even a small increase in food prices might be a disaster. However, when the impacts are indirect, it is sometimes hard for them to be seen as concrete. I liked this article as the cause and effect are direct and cannot be subject to challenge. I am guessing that the people being evicted are probably so poor that their options for the future are limited and bleak.

I have, in previous posts, highlighted other economic impacts of the global warming scare. For example, I discussed the closure and removal of a steel plant in the UK, which was relocating to India as a result of anti-carbon dioxide policies. In this case, through no fault of their own, jobs were lost and relocated to India, thereby helping India in its development. However, what did those workers in the UK do to deserve to lose their jobs? Here in New Zealand, I have highlighted the idiocy and cost of wind energy, and placed emphasis on the fact that it is the poorest in society who will pay the greatest price. They spend a disproportionate amount of income on power.

In the case of the UK workers, and the less well off in New Zealand, the impacts of anti-global warming policy are unfortunate, and more than a little unfair. However, in the case of many of the really poor in the world, the price is greater than unfair. The price is life and death. I have already mentioned biofuels as one example of negative impacts. However, there is a greater and even more abstracted cost; the loss of economic growth due to policies to limit emissions of carbon dioxide.

Poverty kills, and policy which limits economic growth can only result in keeping more people mired in poverty. It is not possible to put any figures on the cost that might not be contested, but one thing must be certain. Making energy more expensive must, absolutely must, be a choke on economic growth. That choke on economic growth will have real impacts upon the prospects of life and death for many people, and will see their children’s prospects likewise left as marginal. Loss of economic growth hurts us all, but it hurts some more than others.

When thinking of these impacts, we need to look at the impacts in the context of the growing body of evidence that suggests that there has been outright dishonesty by climate scientists. Many will have read the Climategate emails, and been alarmed at what they read. The latest consideration of the deceptions of the UK’s Climate Research Unit makes sobering reading. The discussion is technical, but reveals that there was intentional deception in the development of temperature records to support the alarmist position. The result of this deception was a key supporting foundations for climate alarmism.

In a recent upset, the Heartland Institute used very poor taste to garner attention to the global warming skeptical position. They have been widely criticised for stepping back from the high ground, and the criticism is deserved. Nevertheless, some in the alarmist camp have used what are often ugly methods to promote their ’cause’; these include claims that they are saving us all from disaster, death and destruction, and therefore that those who ‘deny’ their claims should be treated as criminals.

However, here we now all are, in a position where key evidence in the debate on global warming increasingly appears to be deliberate deception. And the longer the scare goes forwards, and the longer the time that policy is directed towards the alarm, the more the harm is being done to economic growth. The lack of economic growth has real consequences in the here and now, and going into the future.

Whilst I must accept the possibility that the alarm about global warming might be justifiable, I need far more than the deceptions of corrupt science to shift my skepticism. There are undoubtedly good and honest scientists sitting on the alarmist side, but when seeing that key foundations are built upon sand, and on seeing the Climategate emails, I find it hard to find anything that might justify the ongoing cost of the global warming alarmism. Reading Booker’s column on the WWF, we can see a direct cost of alarmism, but the real cost is too abstract to see. I look around and see that the corruption of science is very clear, and the cost is too high.

 

The Madness of Wind Energy

It did not take me long. Typing ‘wind energy’ into the New Zealand Herald search box produced a string of ‘hits’, including this from a piece about Genesis Energy:

While Genesis began seeking resource consents for a major new wind farm in the Wairarapa, called Castle Hill, during the period, it considers the market is currently “saturated” with new generation proposals that will more than meet weakly growing electricity demand in the near future.

Yes, like many others in the world, New Zealand is rushing down the wind energy route, and doing so in the face of a mounting body of evidence that this route is  a complete waste of money.

One of my earliest posts on the blog was a discussion of the utter uselessness of wind energy, and you may want to take a look at it. It gives an analogy which explains the uselessness of this method of energy production in simple terms. More recently, I posted on a Civitas (a UK ‘think-tank’) report on wind energy, which slammed both the economics of wind power, and the ‘green’ credentials of wind power. As it is, a new report has been released by the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF). It is written by an Economics Professor, Gordon Hughes, and points out the same problems with wind energy that can be found in my earlier post and the Civitas report. I will quote from the forward of the report:

The total consumer bill for wind subsidies by 2030 is estimated to amount to a staggering £130 billion. A recent analysis of UK wind farms revealed that a dozen of the biggest landowners will between them receive almost £850 million in subsidies, a huge amount of funding that will be paid by ordinary
families through hidden taxes on their household electricity bills.

The forward notes that these huge expenses and subsidies have been hidden from the consumer. As is always the case, Hughes identifies that the fundamental problems with wind (and many other sources of ‘renewable’) energy is the intermittent nature of the generation, which means that back-up generation capacity is needed for the wind farms. The report also questions whether the use of wind farms will even reduce CO2 emissions, which is one of the fundamental reasons that wind energy has been promoted so heavily, and is in receipt of so much subsidy. If you have ever wondered about the economics of wind generation, I strongly recommend reading the report in full, or at least reading the summary.

The report goes against one of the great green causes, and it is therefore no surprise to see the limited coverage of the report in the press. I found no coverage in a search of Stuff, but a Google news search found coverage in several countries, also including this from The Australian:

The British study warns of the rising cost to consumers of wind power subsidies on the grounds that governments could achieve the same environmental benefits by other means at much lower cost.

Comparing a pound stg. 13 billion ($19bn) outlay on a combined-cycle gas plant against a pound stg. 120bn outlay on wind farms, Professor Hughes found the renewable energy option was too expensive by any standard.

Wind power would cut emissions at an average cost of pound stg. 270 a tonne, he estimated, but meeting Britain’s greenhouse targets in this way would cost about pound stg. 78bn a year or 4.4 per cent of the nation’s GDP.

Note the last figure for the cost in GDP. To say that this is complete madness would be an understatement. As the report in the Australian points out, wind characteristics may vary between countries, making direct comparisons difficult, but the principles of the study carry over. I therefore have several questions about wind power in New Zealand:

1. What is the real cost of wind energy in New Zealand, including indirect subsidies of wind power?
2. How much is this going to cost businesses?
3. How much is this going to cost consumers?

It may come as no surprise to find that the New Zealand Wind Energy Association has given a report arguing that wind power is a wonderful solution to New Zealand energy requirements. However, as is always the case with such reports, and as is pointed out in both the Civitas and GWPF reports, the pro-wind energy reports all have in common that they make completely unrealistic assumptions. As it is, the report was criticised by the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition, in a press release that can be found here:

“The report uses an economic model of New Zealand which is totally unsuited to analysing the effect of 20% energy generation from wind. Any model that does not take into account the intermittent and seasonal nature of wind and its effect on power prices and the fact that, in a dry year, hydro cannot backup wind, is worthless. The model makes no allowance for the fact that over peak demand periods, only about 10% of the wind generation can be relied on. It also does not consider the need for extra transmission lines and the poor efficiency of the gas fired power stations that must be built to back up wind. For example, one study in the United States showed that, in Texas, a large amount of wind energy results in a tiny reduction in carbon dioxide emissions.

“This flawed report reflects little credit on the Infometrics and on the New Zealand Wind Energy Association. It does not alter the fact that wind is expensive, requires backup, and has only a small effect on reducing emissions of carbon dioxide–which is, in any event, an entirely beneficial gas that causes plants to grow,” Mr Leyland concluded.

Notwithstanding this critique, where is the debate on wind power in New Zealand? Where is the equivalent of Civitas? The UK is slowly waking up to the idiocy of wind power, with this from Matt Ridley in the UK’s Spectator:

Even in a boom, wind farms would have been unaffordable — with their economic and ecological rationale blown away. In an era of austerity, the policy is doomed, though so many contracts have been signed that the expansion of wind farms may continue, for a while. But the scam has ended. And as we survey the economic and environmental damage, the obvious question is how the delusion was maintained for so long. There has been no mystery about wind’s futility as a source of affordable and abundant electricity — so how did the wind-farm scam fool so many policymakers?

One answer is money. There were too many people with snouts in the trough. Not just the manufacturers, operators and landlords of the wind farms, but financiers: wind-farm venture capital trusts were all the rage a few years ago — guaranteed income streams are what capitalists like best; they even get paid to switch the monsters off on very windy days so as not to overload the grid. Even the military took the money. Wind companies are paying for a new £20 million military radar at Brizlee Wood in Northumberland so as to enable the Ministry of Defence to lift its objection to the 48-turbine Fallago Rig wind farm in Berwickshire.

Wind energy is not a small issue. It is, in fact, an issue that can have profound and serious impacts upon every New Zealand family, and every New Zealand business. Look again at the figures for the cost of wind power in the UK, as measured in GDP. If the cost of New Zealand’s wind energy is even as low as half of the UK figure, it is an issue that impacts the whole of the New Zealand economy.When is New Zealand going to wake up from this madness that is so economically ruinous?

What really worries me is that there appears to be no will to take on anything which has a ‘green’ label attached to it. It is a situation in which no politician dares to go against anything that might be seen as anti-green. As such, rather than taking on a ‘green issue’, I suspect that the New Zealand politicians will remain silent, and allow this economically mad and economically ruinous policy of encouraging wind energy to continue.

More on Wind Power

I have posted a few times on the use of wind power (here and here) and a new report from the UK think-tank Civitas, adds fuel to the fire of cynicism about the utility of wind power. However, before looking at the problems of wind power, it is notable that they provide estimates of the increases in power costs of the UK’s green energy legislation, with different estimates based upon fossil fuel prices. I will provide the central estimates here:

Year 2020: Domestic +27%, Medium-sized business + 34%, large energy intensive large industry +8-28%

As they reasonably argue, these increases in costs will simply make the UK less competitive, and will simply encourage businesses to move overseas to locations where there is no similar legislation. Even if accepting that carbon dioxide is a problem, the move of businesses to other locations makes no impact upon the total emissions.

Moving back to the subject of wind power, some selected quotes are given below:

As we have already pointed out the estimates by Mott MacDonald flatter wind-power as they made no allowance for any add-on costs. One of the main reasons is that wind-power is unreliable and requires conventional back-up generating capacity when wind speeds are, for example, very low or rapidly varying, which increases the overall costs of wind-power.

MacDonald assumed load factors of just 25-31% for onshore wind and 35-45% for offshore wind.4
However it should be noted that even these figures for load factors can give an impression of greater reliability than is actually the case. In spells of very cold weather associated with high pressure areas, when there is enhanced demand for electricity, there tends to be very little wind. This analysis was confirmed by BBC weatherman Paul Hudson, who wrote in January 2011:5
“…during the recent intense cold weather, it’s been our traditional coal and gas fired power stations that have been working flat out to keep our homes and businesses warm. And for the third winter running, the intense cold has gone hand in hand with periods of little or no wind. This should come as no surprise since prolonged cold is invariably associated with areas of high pressure”.

The following chart (chart 3) was included in this BBC report. Wind’s contribution to total electricity output (53,020 Megawatts) on 21 December 2010 was, according to the BBC, 0.04%. This insight is a useful answer to those who say “the wind is always blowing somewhere” in defence of wind-power. In Britain on very cold days it effectively is not. Twenty Megawatts of generation should also be seen in the context of the estimates for plant capacity.

They go on to cite research that finds that maintaining back up power for wind costs between 30-45% onto the costs of wind power. Their conclusion on the real costs of wind power is very clear:

The costing of wind-power electricity generation is clearly very complex. But one conclusion can safely be drawn and that is that wind-power is expensive – especially offshore. Under these circumstances it seems unwise to be embarking on a huge programme of investment in wind generated electricity, especially when the country is facing grave economic challenges. This analysis also ignores the perceived environmental costs of wind-power, especially onshore wind turbines.

Although I am not concerned with carbon dioxide emissions, it is still interesting to read this in the report:

In a comprehensive quantitative analysis of CO2 emissions and wind-power, Dutch physicist C. le Pair has recently shown that deploying wind turbines on “normal windy days” in the Netherlands actually increased fuel (gas) consumption, rather than saving it, when compared to electricity generation with modern high-efficiency gas turbines.7,8 Ironically and paradoxically the use of wind farms therefore actually increased CO2 emissions, compared with using efficient gas-fired combined cycle gas turbines (CCGTs) at full power.

In other words, even if looking at the ‘green’ justification for wind power, it seems that wind power is at best a dubious solution to energy provision.

For those that read my earlier posts on wind energy, this should all be familiar material. Problems of reliability of wind, need for back-up generation, and the location and connection of wind energy into the grid; they all make wind power  expensive. This is the conclusion of the report:

It is expensive and yet it is not effective in cutting CO2 emissions. If it were not for the renewables targets set by the Renewables Directive, wind-power would not even be entertained as a cost-effective way of generating electricity or cutting emissions.

From my perspective, the most interesting aspect of the report is the way in which wind power is in receipt of indirect subsidy, which are often not considered in the official reports and statistics. It is something that has (as far as I know) not been the subject of analysis in New Zealand, and I would be interested to see how wind power ‘stacks up’ here if such a study were undertaken. Perhaps such a study is overdue, as there is a big push for yet more wind power here.

At the very least, the economics of wind power are extremely questionable, and the potential costs are loss of competitiveness, and higher bills for consumers. Those higher bills, of course, will have greater impact upon those on low incomes, who spend a greater proportion of their income on necessities such as power for heating.

Note: If you have not seen it, there is a very good post on the manipulation of temperature data on the Climate Conversation Group. Well worth a read.