"Basically free energy" - weekend fun

To round off our erudite session on flywheels: BTL on the previous post, one of our anons offered us this little Irish video for our edification.

It contains that oft-heard and seductive phrase "basically free energy", upon which we are told Ireland will build Europe's biggest hydrogen economy.  (Hang on a minute, hasn't German already discovered basically free energy?)

Well, the voice-over has a pleasant manner.  And we do get to learn about a grid-scale flywheel in action, if nothing else.  A moderately entertaining quarter-hour of your time.

ND

Say After Me: GDP Trumps GHG ...

While we await the outplaying of the Ameri-farce, here's an amusing story:

Greece set to win €1.75bn from EU climate scheme to build two coal plants

Yes, and lignite plants to boot.   Lignite! 

"You couldn’t make this up,” added Imke Lübbeke, WWF Europe’s head climate and energy policy. “The ETS was intended to reduce greenhouse gas emissions but it now risks being abused to facilitate investments in the new coal plants, which would operate well within the 2060s. This would violate climate targets and is in no way compatible with the leadership role the EU aspires to play in global climate policy and carbon markets.”

Well, there you go.  (In case you were wondering, I didn't make up "Imke Lübbeke", either.)  Law of unexpected consequences, plus my old motto of GDP always trumping GHG.  And this coupled with two other Grauniad stories this week:  hydro power turns out not to be 'clean', and wind turbines are conducting a massacre of bats.   

Life is never as simple as we hope, is it?  We feel their pain.

ND

Renewables: the Bums are Squeaking

Dr Doug Parr, chief scientist and policy director at Greenpeace UK, said: “Wind and solar energy are at the point of becoming really competitive with fossil fuels, but failure to support them for another few years will result in huge losses of potential jobs.” 

Inde, Renewable Energy Industry Is About To Fall Off A Cliff (sic)

He has been eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers, which were to be put in phials hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw inclement summers. He told me, he did not doubt, that, in eight years more, he should be able to supply the governor's gardens with sunshine, at a reasonable rate: but he complained that his stock was low, and entreated me "to give him something as an encouragement to ingenuity, especially since this had been a very dear season for cucumbers."

Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels

If only it had been as few as eight years with the renewables: but the windies, in particular, have been at it for decades, with pitiful results.  The onshore wind industry has had its bluff fairly well called (though existing windfarms continue to be featherbedded) but the government is still pouring our money into the offshore sector and the best you can say about it is, Keynes would presumably have approved if more of the jobs etc were British.  I take the opportunity to repeat my oft-made prediction that the maintenance of over-the-horizon arrays will turn out to be a seriously under-estimated problem / cost.

Ever Been in the North Sea in Winter?

Solar PV is better: the vast amount of research into ever-improving solar generation shows every sign of paying off (eventually).  Let some other idiot governments accelerate the process with a different bunch of taxpayers' money.  Universities and tech labs all over the world (including UK) really have momentum now, and solar can safely be left to reach the status of "really economic" all by itself.

Even with oil at $30 for a while.  Meantime, stand by for more disingenuous whining from Parr, Legett and the vested interests they represent because, despite lots of whistling the in the dark ("It's good because it means more oil will stay in the ground") $30 will do for them more surely than a big shale gas discovery in George Osborne's back garden.

ND

Cat Among Pigeons: Worm Turning ?

Well at least a couple of Cameron's reshuffle appointments raise a smile: John Hayes to DECC and Owen Paterson to Environment, ha ha !

The wit and wisdom of Mr Hayes apparently includes deep skepticism about the claims of wind turbines:

' ... quoted as saying wind farms are a “terrible intrusion” and “renewable energy needs to pass the twin tests of environmental and economic sustainability and wind power fails on both counts”.'

They seem both to be hostile to subsidised schemes in general, and appropriately open minded to the potential of shale gas.

Cue apoplexy, (hopefully fatal) in all the usual quarters: is Mr P a CC-skeptic ?   Will Mr H put a stop to the subsidy-wallahs' gravy train ?

It is greatly to be hoped he will (though holding one's breath is not advised). Likewise a serious shale gas programme.  Time for this lethargic government worm to turn.

ND

   

Yet More Realism on Energy Policy

A month ago we reported that a new wave of realism had swept through the DECC (crazy name, crazy logo), and sure enough, a few days later, along came Ed Miliband’s brutally cunning new plan for coal.

We are pleased to say that the new realism continues unabated. This, from a senior DECC official – who can’t be named, it wasn’t that sort of occasion, but it’s verbatim:

“The development of considerable amounts of new nuclear capacity – which is base-load – and considerable amounts of new renewables capacity – which is intermittent – is potentially incompatible …

Nice civil service understatement, there.

… and would result in the need for a great deal more grid interconnection with mainland Europe. The National Grid is working a lot of scenarios”

What this refers to, is that the only way Denmark and northern Germany manage (just about) to tolerate so much lame wind-powered generation is that they have ready access to the instantly-available back-up from Scandinavia’s plentiful hydro-power, to which they are connected. We aren’t. The UK’s hydro resource is de minimis.

So - Whitehall knows the score: this is all about Telling Truth to Power. About Power. If you see what I mean. Hopefully, the grown-ups are listening.

Meanwhile, National Grid are loving it. The crazier the UK’s electricity generation mix, the more they have to invest to accommodate it all – at guaranteed rates of return ! What’s not to like ?

ND

Diplomatic incident with Germany

Reports in the press suggests a crucial piece of UFO investigation surrounds 10 Downing Street. Allegedly during a discussion with Peter Steinbruck on UK/German economic policy, Gordon Brown got so angry he dispatched his mobile phone out of the window and it is reported to have caused some damage miles away.

If the German investigation finds this to be true expect another fall in UK-German political relations....

hat-tip to The Telegraph