Gordon Brown unveils £100bn wind farm gamble

[Aurora]

Times OnLine - 03/01/10

GORDON BROWN will this week launch a £100 billion green power revolution when he awards a raft of development contracts to build a new generation of offshore wind farms.

The government envisages a third of the UK’s energy coming from wind power by 2020. The plan is far and away the most ambitious in the world and comprises the central plank of the country’s efforts to cut emissions.

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[kenneal - lagger]

Election grandstanding

[Aurora]

Election grandstanding

So is this Ken:

The Guardian - 03/01/10

David Cameron to pledge NHS cash boost for most deprived areas

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I'm afraid that, like many others on this forum, I have completely lost faith in all of the major parties and am now awaiting the post election misery which will inevitably befall this country of ours, irrespective of which party wins.

We now have the highest deficit on record, so for any of the parties to suggest that we can buy our way out of the brown stuff is sheer folly and electioneering at its' best.

That said, I nevertheless find the idea of 30% of the UK’s energy coming from wind power by 2020 an attractive proposition especially if it could create an additional 60,000 new jobs.

[2 As and a B]

The days of the statesman are gone.

This is another cowardly news-management pre-announcement. I can wait a few days to read the true story, and the commentaries on it.

[stumuzz]

A good news story.

Taking us in the direction of where we want to be. A low carbon, high skill economy with the energy available to stop the money leeching out of the country to buy expensive fossil fuels.

If you view this story through BAU glasses, then it is a drop in the ocean. But if you view it as a valuable asset which will provide power when most of us have powered down to 30% of what we are using now because of price rationing, it can only be a great thing.

However, this will disappoint those who dream of a fast crash/no fly/socialist/vegetarian future.

[Pennsif]

All jolly good - but how much of the money will stay in the UK economy?

Where will the turbines come from?

And what about the rare earths that are going to be needed in all these projects? I believe China will have an angle on that.

Pennsif

[stumuzz]

All jolly good - but how much of the money will stay in the UK economy?

Does not matter

will the turbines come from?

Again, irrelevant. If a power station was built using Russian materials, we still get to use the power. It is the ability to grow and develop in the new energy paradigm which will be key. Most people cannot envisage a future where we will do more with less.

what about the rare earths that are going to be needed in all these projects? I believe China will have an angle on that.

Rare earths are a sideshow at the mo’

When the new energy paradigm gradually happens the Chinese will have faced ecological collapse on top of a huge reduction in tat exports. Whilst we in the UK will have a very pleasant place to live, in a renewable economy, with a better quality of life. Stopping the climate refuges will be a bigger problem.

There is so much good news at the moment concerning PO and CC, food security on the agenda, polluter pays principle taking affect, packaging being tackled at the macro level, more people becoming energy literate, PO and CC being indirectly discussed at boardroom level. The good news is there you just have to look.

[RenewableCandy]

I don't think you need rare earths to build a bog-standard WT, though I may be wrong.

And yes, China's in for an eco-catastrophe of interesting proportions, a bit like The Great Leap Forward only bigger.

[Pennsif]

Wind turbines now use the rare earth Neodymium for the magnets.

Reports suggest approximately 2 tonnes is required for a 3MW turbine - although that does seem high!

http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/s ... on/3451837

I don't think you need rare earths to build a bog-standard WT, though I may be wrong.

Pennsif

[Vortex]

Alternators do NOT need much in the way of permanent magnets.

The magnets can be electromagnets powered by the alternator itself.

(The initial kick start is indeed due to permanent magnets - but small ordinary cheap ones will suffice)

Non-rare earth alternators are totally possible - just less efficient.

This whole rare earth argument is a canard, with the exception of special cases such as LCD backing films.

[Aurora]

Update: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8443865.stm

[Aurora]

The Guardian - 10/01/10

UK power prepares for a cold wind of change

The government's new green initiatives are unlikely to come online fast enough to plug our growing energy gap.

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[Totally_Baffled]

The Guardian - 10/01/10

UK power prepares for a cold wind of change

The government's new green initiatives are unlikely to come online fast enough to plug our growing energy gap.

Article continues ...

In time for our energy gap? Or will we just fill it with more coal and say up yours to the EU emissions limitis?

Not saying its right - but that will happen way before the lights go out?

[Keepz]

The Guardian - 10/01/10

UK power prepares for a cold wind of change

The government's new green initiatives are unlikely to come online fast enough to plug our growing energy gap.

Article continues ...

In time for our energy gap? Or will we just fill it with more coal and say up yours to the EU emissions limitis?

Not saying its right - but that will happen way before the lights go out?

Stupid article, in a number of ways.

Thursday had already brought an unwelcome reminder of the more mundane reality of Britain's energy policy today: almost 100 factories were ordered to shut off their gas supplies, to prevent the prolonged cold snap leaving households in the dark, in what energy experts said was the clearest evidence yet of a looming power crisis.

The dire winter weather may have been impossible to predict, but the fact that it forced the National Grid to trigger so-called "interruptible contracts" for scores of large firms, underlines just how short supplies already are.

If supplies were desperately short as is being suggested, the price would be higher. As previously noted, the (very short-lived) supply reductions were due to capacity constraints in the pipeline network which the demand side had indicated (by taking up interruptible contracts) that it was not prepared to pay to upgrade. Do we think that gas consumers should be forced to accept and pay for higher levels of supply security than they want?

Even with the interconnector pipeline now bringing gas directly from the continent, a lack of storage capacity means there is no guarantee that Britain's needs will be served, and prices can swing dramatically.

Storage capacity doesn't guarantee that needs can be served either - witness the Rough fire a few years ago. Of course prices move about, that is precisely what keeps the market in balance.

There is little indication of how the government hopes to fill the gap between the clunky old plants being mothballed, and the shiny new future of renewables in a decade's time.

"Everybody's blaming the Labour government, but the problem started with the Tories: no government has really grasped the nettle of an energy mix to make sure that we have got secure supplies," says Bainbridge.

Actually, the market has delivered a pretty good diversity of supply, and it (not the Government) is building new power plants right now.

Meanwhile, many analysts fear rationing, like that which took place last week, will become an increasingly common occurrence.

Who are these "many analysts" and do they have good reason for their apparent belief that the weather is going to deliver conditions like these more often in future?

Firms voluntarily sign up to interruptible contracts, which give them cheaper bills; but when a blackout is triggered, as it was last week, companies can suddenly be forced to look for supplies elsewhere at short notice, and often at painfully high cost.

Or they can pay the higher cost for non-interruptible supply contracts, or take up any of the wide range of tailored supply contracts to suit individual circumstances that is available, or invest in back-up capability, as many have done; or they can put new build in parts of the country where the gas pipeline capacity is not constrained, like the new gas fired power stations.

But Helm suggests it may be a forlorn hope to expect the government to take radical action upfront to secure supplies. He draws a parallel with financial regulation. For many years, he says, governments simply stood back and expected the market to provide — but collective problems such as making sure the lights don't go out will never be solved by individual firms, which have an incentive to keep prices high. "Security of supply is a public good: it's a system property; it will not be provided by the market left to its own devices," he says.

This is quite incredible from a professional economist. Individual firms may have an incentive to keep prices high, but they cannot in a competitive market. If they try to constrain supply, they simply open up an opportunity for their competitors. Helm might have done better to draw a parallel with the gas market, which has delivered huge investment in capacity and which is now meeting demand about 30% up on seasonal norms at very comfortable prices.

What a market will not do is provide massive redundancy such that the supply side can deliver under all circumstances and there is never any need for adjustment from the demand side. If that is your policy objective then you'll need to be prepared to pay for it big time, but consumers won't thank you for it

[Aurora]

www.tcetoday news - 11/01/10

THE UK has announced the winning bidders of an audacious renewable energy plan aimed at erecting some 6000 offshore wind turbines by 2020 at an estimated cost of £75b ($121b).

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Winners:

Forewind Consortium, which is equally owned by SSE Renewables, RWE Npower Renewables, Statoil and Statkraft won the contract for the 9 GW Dogger Bank Zone. The 7.2 GW Norfolk Bank Zone was won by East Anglia Offshore Wind, which is equally owned by Scottish Power Renewables and Vattenfall Vindkraft.


The 4.2 GW Irish Sea Zone was awarded to Centrica Renewable Energy and the RES Group. The 4 GW Hornsea Zone was won by a consortium equally owned by Mainstream Renewable Power and Siemens Project Ventures involving Hochtief Construction.


The 3.5 GW Firth of Forth Zone was awarded to SeaGreen Wind Energy, which is equally owned by SSE Renewables and Fluor. The 1.5 GW Bristol Channel Zone was won by RWE Npower Renewables.


The 1.3 GW Moray Firth Zone was awarded to Moray Offshore Renewables, which is 75% owned by EDP Renovaveis and 25% owned by SeaEnergy Renewables. The 0.9 GW West Isle of Wight Zone went to Eneco New Energy. Finally, the 0.6 GW Hastings Zone was awarded to Eon Climate and Renewables UK.