I must confess to harbouring a faint hope the three-week break in your replying signalled something of a reappraisal - a period of reflection, mediation and the dawning of a new age of common sense, perhaps. Clearly, such hope was in vain.
*
More obfuscation, equivocation, procrastination, vacillation and, of course, good old general flimflam.
You sure love saying a lot of nothing of any value.
This doubly amusing insofar as i). You have a decided lack of appreciation of your own work – this latest chapter of yours being the perfect embodiment of my claim. And ii). Using your now well-recognised modus operandi of formulating replies from comments taken out of context (that's good old cherry-picking to you), you've once again employed deflection to avoid the 'of value' component of the section from where you obtained the quote.
As I went on to say:
"'We' don't need to do anything. You, however, need to provide an answer to the query I raised rather than giving excuses for not doing so.
Formulating a response to a phrase within a sentence while ignoring that which was explicitly requested is the very essence of cherry-picking. You did not deem it necessary to qualify your response at the time, and now, for the third time, you have failed to provide an answer to my original comment.
We are all acutely aware of the rising proportion of atmospheric CO2, but after 30 years of intense study and billions spent, there is still no clear evidence to suggest CO2 is the demon the IPCC claims it to be, and certainly no evidence of the water vapour amplification effect, as speculated upon in the Charney Report. There is, however, a growing catalogue of evidence suggesting CO2 is merely a convenient scapegoat.
If you believe differently, do something radical for a change and provide an argument as to why."
Is there any likelihood of your ever providing a rational argument?
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Note: Estimates to retrofit Britain's housing stock alone are around the £2 trillion mark, and AOC's Green New Deal in the US has been costed at anything between $51 - $93 trillion. It appears the only thing 'insanely stupid' around here is your comment.
Why are you being ridiculous, did I have an issue with you saying it would cost trillions? The problem is that any such analysis like you are doing above is completely asinine because that money will need to be spent anyways.
Another quote out of context, along with a complete disregard for previous arguments.
I asked: "Neither have you provided any justification for the spending of trillions on atmospheric 'control', in the hope, it will stop the flooding, rather than the few billions in practical flood defences that will".
You responded with: "I did not want to be mean and point out how insanely stupid it was as an assertion."
To which I responded with the above quote, but only after saying: "Continuing your propensity for ignoring inconvenient comment and data, your claim my statement above is mere assertion comes as little surprise. Of course, without any supporting evidence or argument, your claim too can as easily be classified as such. The difference, however, is that I have previously provided such an argument, whereas you deny its existence and preferring instead to exercise your wild imagination in a risible attempt at deflection."
i). Patently, you do have an issue with the quoted costings. ii). The quoted costing do not stem from my analysis. iii). And why does the money need to be spent anyway when the justification for it looks increasingly unnecessary?
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1). As previously mentioned, injecting CO2 into concrete to improve the product cannot be considered a mass storage solution, as it only offsets the CO2 produced in its production.
a) Concrete is critical to today’s society and it’s use keeps increasing. b) Traditional cement is a huge producer of CO2 (roughly 1kg of CO2 for 1 kg of cement and it accounts for around 10% of anthropogenic CO2) so even reducing that is a real good thing. c) Research is at the point where we can have carbon negative concrete and it can be produced in very small quantities now. The issue is you need the readily available CO2 if you are carbon negative and the money to build new facilities for example read up on Carbicrete
From Wiki:
"Traditional cement manufacture releases large amounts of carbon dioxide, but newly developed cement types from Novacem [91] can absorb CO2 from ambient air during hardening.[92] A similar technique was pioneered by TecEco, which has been producing "EcoCement" since 2002.[93] A Canadian startup CarbonCure takes captured CO2 and injects it into concrete as it is being mixed.[94] Carbon Upcycling UCLA is another company that uses CO2 in concrete. Their concrete product is called CO2NCRETE™, a concrete that hardens faster and is more eco-friendly than traditional concrete."
Such materials are an entrepreneurial answer to assuage the 'guilt' of those using a material with a recognised high carbon footprint; i.e. Green virtue signalling. Even if adopted wholesale, and on a world-wide basis, their sequestration abilities will have little impact on the removal of the many hundreds of millions of tons of CO2 from the atmosphere, thus they cannot be considered a mass storage solution.
Furthermore, as mentioned above (and signally ignored by you), the whole issue of carbon sequestration is predicated on the still inconclusive belief that CO2 is the cause of the warming and, given its significant plant fertilisation properties, that it's control is actually desirable. You continue to concern yourself with apocalyptic visions of a world suffering the fate of metres high sea-level rise, but ignore/dismiss the consequences to agricultural output in a world reduced to preindustrial revolution levels of atmospheric CO2. There is no scientific evidence of either occurring, but you can't have your cake and eat it.
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2). Another worst-case scenario is an extinction-level meteor strike à la Deep Impact or a pandemic à la 12 Monkeys. Metres high sea-level rise from presumed CO2 induced warming is, however, pure alarmist hyperbole, not even worthy of a low budget Hollywood film.
You are missing the point and physics. a) If we assume we don’t care about GHG and temperature rising then we must assume all glaciers melt or at some point we say "enough is enough" and we spend that money fighting GHGs and global warming so you saved nothing. b) Water takes up cubic volume, if you limit it on area (i.e. stop flooding) then the other area will raise higher (i.e. the same amount of water in a bowl will be lower than in a glass c) If you build a wall and on the sea side the water is higher than land side and a wave comes that is higher than the wall you will have a real issue land side. Imagine a tsunami, it comes, it hits land, a few seconds later the water recedes and if it caused damage that damage can be repaired fast. Now imagine there is a wall and the wave is higher than your wall. The flood comes and floods the land but now the wall is blocking it from receding back into the deap ocean.
And the whole of Hereford could be swallowed by a giant sinkhole. The Yellowstone Super Caldera could explode. A nuclear war could trigger another ice age. You could have an epiphany and realise you're talking twaddle…
Yes, we all of us have an imagination, but I don't allow mine to overrule present scientific understanding – ref. Post 74.
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3). Pragmatic planning outweighs wing and a prayer hope. Only the institutionally gullible would believe otherwise, which is perhaps the reason for your wild speculation and unsupported claims.
Agree, that is why I am into spending smart money that helps with so much stuff including reducing CO2 instead of denying the obvious and praying and hoping that the changes won’t be as bad as credible people predict.
Good Lord! There is nothing remotely smart in spending money you don't have on plans which will have absolutely no discernible effect on the attempts to control the level of an essential trace gas for which there is an increasing body of evidence showing it is not the problem it's claimed to be - and is, in fact, actually proving to be hugely beneficial to the planet and agriculture – ref. Post 85.
And taking a leaf out of your cherry-picking book…
"…instead of denying the obvious…"
Hmm… I don’t recollect ever denying the idiocy of your claims.
"…and praying and hoping that the changes won’t be as bad as credible people predict."
Pray tell, which credible people do you have in mind? Those who are handsomely rewarded for producing policy science, or those scantly rewarded and derided for trying to uphold the principle of the scientific method and the furthering of human understanding?
*
*Note: The Dutch are doing precisely this with the ongoing renovation works being carried out on the Afsluitdijk: the primary sea wall protecting their polder regions.
Yes, but how much would it cost to rebuild from scratch, how much is it costing in renovations and how much would it cost to do that around every land mass?
And
Climate change lore tells us The Maldives should no longer exist.
Who said that?
Two more cherry-picked comments taken out of context:
Me: "I have never claimed sea level rise cannot cause flooding."
You: "Does that mean you agree that it does happen?"
Me: "I have, however, previously mentioned that in some instances, land subsidence is more of a factor then rising water level."
You: "Absolutely, so can natural disasters (like a tsunami), man-made planning (like flooding a cranberry field at harvest time), man-made disasters (like a dam breaking)…., also if it is "more of a factor" and not the only factor. Are any of those relevant to the discussion? Absolutely not.
"Also if it is 'more of a factor' then rising water level is also a factor in what happened, you can't just dismiss it just because you want to pretend it is not true."
Me: "More paranoid alarmist twaddle.
"Seaborne flooding events are entirely the result of natural disasters creating large tidal swells (e.g. The Bristol Channel floods of 1607) or storm surges during periods of unusually high tides (e.g. The North Sea Floods of 1953). The modest sea level rise we've seen for the past 150 years (circa 45 cms) would have had little additional effect, and once again the practical solutions of maintaining and improving sea defences* trumps the wishful thinking of atmospheric CO2 control - the latter, of course, presupposing the, by no means certain, belief that CO2 is the cause of the rise in the first place.
"*Note: The Dutch are doing precisely this with the ongoing renovation works being carried out on the Afsluitdijk: the primary sea wall protecting their polder regions.
"As for sea-level rise itself. Climate change lore tells us The Maldives should no longer exist, but not only has their seaborne doom failed to materialise, the islands are actually thriving; most notably from the billions of infrastructure investment (airports and hotels) being provided by the Saudis. And land subsidence is far from irrelevant, as areas where it's occurring (e.g. Jakarta, The Mekong Delta) have been principally promoted as areas threatened by climate change, which is a complete misrepresentation of fact.
"Stories of apocalyptic sea-level rise are unsupported alarmist exaggerations, specifically designed to lure the institutionally gullible into unnecessary pre-emptive action. It seems to me you've been hooked."
However, to answer your questions.
Sea defences, if indeed ever considered necessary, can be assessed on an ongoing basis and remedial action taken as and when required. The costs associated with such actions, though undoubtedly significant, will be by orders of magnitude lower than the plans presently being presented for 'controlling' an atmospheric trace gas in the pure blind hope it will slow or stop climate change. As I said; pragmatic planning outweighs wishful thinking.
As for the supposed threat to the Maldives, I’m shocked you appear oblivious of it. It's common knowledge!
"Former president Mohamed Nasheed has been highly outspoken about this issue, saying in 2012 that 'If carbon emissions continue at the rate they are climbing today, my country will be under water in seven years.'"
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I would have thought the increased complexity of two random variables interacting a simple concept for a mathematician to understand. It seems I was mistaken.
The issue is you are neither a mathematician nor someone that knows or understands electricity. There are not two "variables", I can turn or off my bathroom light, that is one variable, I can dim up or down the light in my dining room so that is another variable, my fridge is a third variable and it decides when and how much power to draw from the grid and my cell/mobile is also a variable because sometimes it needs to be connected, there are millions and possibly billions and trillions of them and probability tells us they are unlikely to all change in the same way at the same time which is why the electric grid works. It is also why a big power failure in one area (and why during a black out they tell you to turn everything out) when a lot of those "variables" act like one "variable" there can be cascading black outs.
What a surprise! Yet another comment taken out of context. This one, however, is somewhat different insofar as its intent is more sinister and pernicious. Here, you have used it as a counterpoint to create a bogus narrative of electricity demand and supply presumably, or so I imagine, to maintain support for your false narrative surrounding the cost-effectiveness of renewables.
As I said - IN FULL:
"Basic principles of electricity supply.
"Suppliers know that for a given time of the year demand will never fall below a certain threshold, ergo some plants can be run at full power 24/7. This is known as baseload generation and something ideally suited to nuclear. Above that we have dispatchable generation, which can be quickly adjusted to meet demand, and above that there are 'short term peakers', which are only called upon in the event of unexpected transient demands.
"Years of monitoring has provided suppliers with enough data and understanding to approximately gauge expected demand. If, however, we now add in a source of generation which is itself randomly variable, load balancing becomes an increasingly complex issue (more plant having to be placed on standby for example), which adds cost.
"I would have thought the increased complexity of two random variables interacting a simple concept for a mathematician to understand. It seems I was mistaken."
In an effort to maintain your fallacious claims you've once again completely ignored previous argument, my foremost comments, the fundamental issue of renewables intermittency and, furthermore, have attempted to obfuscate your way out of the hole into which you've dug yourself by focusing your attention on the innocuous 'variables' of appliance switching.
The random nature of how electricity is used by individual households is hardly a new phenomenon and has been balanced by the judicious use of baseload and dispatchable generation for many decades. The relatively recent introduction of intermittent renewables, though, has added to the complexity (and thus cost) of load balancing demands, as now not only is demand a random variable, but to a certain degree also is the supply.
This is plainly the point I was making and the very point your fairy tale reply studiously ignores. It is also the reason for former Secretary of State for the Department of Energy & Climate Change, Amber Rudd, declaring in a November 2015 speech that 'we also want intermittent generators to be responsible for the pressures they add to the system'.
Your pathetic attempt to manipulate the argument to support your preferred narrative is brazen, wholly without merit and thus shameful. What next? A claim that smart grids can match the peaks and troughs of wind flow patterns to the switching on and off of appliances? This is cloud cuckoo land nonsense. It is not I who misunderstands the nature and complexity of power generation, an assertion made all the more hilarious by your saying I'm "neither a mathematician nor someone that knows or understands electricity". And you then have the effrontery to tacitly claim some sort of pseudo expertise and spout bogus drivel.
As the old adage goes, 'don't try teaching granny how to suck eggs'.
*
But then, when it comes to climate, what's new? Inconsistencies from the institutionally gullible are commonplace:
It's too warm - it must be climate change.
It's too cold - it must be climate change.
It's too dry – it must be climate change.
It's too wet – it must be climate change.
Climate change. A solution to (almost) any problem, providing one doesn’t trouble oneself to think too much.
It is not about being gullible but using one’s brain and knowing a bit of physics. Can a planet have different climates like deserts and oceans and rain forests and glaciers? Can a single place have seasons? Why is the UK building wind turbines near the coast? Water cools and heats up faster than earth, that makes a temperature differential between off shore and on shore during the day and night, the colder air (more dense) will push itself into the hotter air (less dense) and that creates wind and the bigger the difference the more wind there will be as things try and equalize. But that is reality everywhere, the North Pole in the winter is extremely cold because it is not heated by the sun, the equator is very warm, that North Pole air is then dragged down more south in the winter which means those areas with that arctic chill will get colder.
Oh, look! More selective quotes; this time to introduce meteorological concepts not in dispute, to avoid the truism of my comment when taken as a whole.
As I said - IN FULL:
"First, you start with a meaningless discussion about the nature and composition of water. This is followed by a pointless debate about the geographical locations of HQ's operations. Which is then followed by a meaningless attempt at comparing the theoretical possibility of zero dispatchable hydro output with the genuine possibility of zero non-dispatchable wind output. In short, you've done nothing other than produce three paragraphs chock-full of philosophical smoke and mirrors in a risible attempt at trying to justify the glaringly obvious contradiction you presented. But then, when it comes to climate, what's new? Inconsistencies from the institutionally gullible are commonplace:
It's too warm - it must be climate change.
It's too cold - it must be climate change.
It's too dry – it must be climate change.
It's too wet – it must be climate change.
There's too much flooding – it must be climate change.
There's too much drought – it must be climate change.
The fuel suppliers have gone on strike – it must be climate change.
The Brits have voted for Brexit – it must be climate change.
I've taken two weeks to respond – it must... No, wait! That was Christmas and I had better things to do.
Climate change. A solution to (almost) any problem, providing one doesn’t trouble oneself to think too much."
Once again you've lifted a few comments, presented in response to an entirely different line of reasoning, to create a rambling reply which tells us what exactly? That different regions of the planet have different microclimates and weather patterns? Well, that's certainly taught me a thing or two. [/sarc]
Notes: i). I think you'll find that it's land which warms and cools faster than water - not the other way around. ii). Dogger Bank in the North Sea (the proposed home for a number of mega-sized wind arrays) could hardly be called coastal. iii). One aspect of the current warming is a reduction of the temperature differential between the Arctic and Equatorial regions. This, contrary to the popularly promoted myth, has made weather more benign. Empirical data shows a reduction in severe weather events, not an increase. iv). New research by wind farm operators has shown that wind farms slows down wind speed more than previously thought - resulting in the knock-on effect of reducing output - ref. Post 120.
The aim of my comment, as you (should) well know, is the myriad number of contradictory claims citing climate change as the root cause of 'the problem' whatever it may be. As I said, it's become the ubiquitous excuse for just about every conceivable ill known (and, no doubt, as yet unknown) to man. Furthermore, as mentioned by, I believe Nigel Calder in 'The Great Global Warming Swindle', it's also now the favoured excuse for those applying for research grants. Want to know more about the mating rituals of the lesser-spotted dingbat? Just say their habitat is threatened by climate change.
Following on from this, there was (for once) an interesting piece of realistic reporting by Sherelle Jacobs (in the Daily Telegraph the other day) which bears repeating here. [Bold face mine.]
Davos Doom-mongers herald a new dark age for climate science.
"There is something sinister in the stiff mountain air at Davos this year. As ever, the spectacle is almost burlesque in its grotesqueness: the world's elite has descended on the luxury ski resort in their private jets to discuss global warming over pan-seared Indonesian soy cutlets cooked by a celebrity vegan chef flown in from Canada. But underneath the seedy hypocrisy lingers an even murkier mendacity: an unthinking consensus on how to 'save the planet'.
"Take the speech by Greta Thunberg, who rattled off Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change figures pertaining to requisite cuts in carbon emissions. 'I've been repeating these numbers over and over again,' she droned as gormless CEOs and UN apparatchiks blinked at the hoodie-clad managtivist standing before them, grinding on about missed deadlines and squandered targets.
"Greta's bland, corporate-friendly strategy is intriguing; it reinforces her ruse – that the science is mind-numbingly clear, the necessary actions are unquestionable, and that her task is simply to 'continue to repeat' it until we are bored.
"Naturally, Donald Trump was having none of it. He let rip at this paper-shufflers' PR stunt, dismissing the 'predictions of the apocalypse' and 'prophets of doom'. In his own ham-fisted way, the president was groping at – if not quite grasping – the disconcerting truth. Global warming is happening, but the climate science itself is messy, mystifying and ambivalent; the certainty with which eco-warriors present their case is thus disgracefully dishonest.
"The causal links made between global warming and the Australian bushfires is one example. Greta has tweeted her despair at the world’s failure 'to make the connection between the climate crisis and extreme weather events and nature disasters like the #AustralianFires'. But the inconvenient truth is that scientists have not definitively linked the bushfires to climate change alone. It may be a factor among many. The Australian Academy of Science itself concedes: 'Population growth, climate change, temperature extremes, droughts, storms, wind and floods are intersecting in ways that are difficult to untangle.'
"The misleading bushfires rhetoric barely scratches the surface of the problems with this consensus. 'We know perfectly well' that humans are behind the heating of the planet, Sir David Attenborough proclaimed in a recent BBC interview: this is now a 'crisis moment'. But Sir David's onomatopoeically crumbly prose can't distract from the shaky foundations of his apocalyptic assertions.
"You don't need to dispute that man is contributing to global warming to question whether it is healthy to talk about the issue with such unwavering certainty, or to ask whether the situation is so urgent as to require the impoverishment of billions to fix it. Scientists have not indisputably proved that other factors are not also contributing. Studies of the heat going into the oceans by dissenters like the Israeli physicist Nir Shaviv, for example, suggest the Sun has a large effect on climate change. Eco-catastrophists have not credibly invalidated his findings, published in the prestigious Journal of Geophysical Research.
"Such uncertainties matter when people are being asked to make vast sacrifices in the name of reaching net zero carbon. All our efforts may not make a difference anyway. But contrary views are not permitted. Some researchers are chilled by the shift from scientific endeavour based on theory and evidence to reliance on IPCC-endorsed predictive modelling. Here the cult of managerialism and the mania of eco-catastrophism have dangerously intersected – as university bureaucrats push for research projects which pull in mouth-watering computer-based investment.
"Like Galileo and Descartes on the eve of the Enlightenment, scholars have found subtle ways to dodge the suspicions of inquisitorial reactionaries. They discreetly publish papers without press releases, or with incongruous 'eco-consensus' inserts, even though these often jar with their findings.
"When did Western civilisation enter this new Dark Age? The creepy scenes of Greta's machinic protestations at Davos offer a clue. Managerialism, an ideology that has filled the vacuum created by the collapse of communism and post-Seventies disillusionment with market capitalism, infects every corner of society. The twist is that it relies for its survival on the flagrant denial of the chaotic complexity upon which it feeds. It deems that all problems (like all corporations) share more similarities than differences, and can thus be solved through generic, optimised processes.
"Thus activists like Greta reduce climate change to a clearly diagnosed illness that can be treated by meeting precise deadlines, while the rest of us pay the bill. And thus our elites – who share the same arrogant belief that we have all the expertise to address the Earth’s intricacies – cravenly refuse to acknowledge anything that throws into doubt established 'facts'. Sadly, until the era of managerialism falls in on itself, we are probably stuck."
It’s to be hoped that a little more realism like this will help bring a swift end to this insidious "era of managerialism".
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Once again then, since your memory retention appears to be similar to that of a goldfish, UK renewable energy is prioritised: solar first, followed by wind (then other sources depending upon availability). In such circumstances, it makes no financial sense to regulate supply by turning turbines on or off to meet demand. One caveat to this, as I mentioned, is their being turned off in the event of overcapacity, though in such a circumstance, the affected operators are then compensated via the constraints payment mechanism; i.e. they are paid to produce nothing. However, over and above the financial considerations, there is also no practical sense in attempting to regulate a stable supply with a volatile source as the latter's output (sometimes even on a minute to minute basis), cannot be guaranteed.
It is not a memory problem on my part but consistency and making sense issue on your part.
When I pointed out wind can be ramp up and down fast you had a hissy fit and I did not know what I was talking about now because you want constraint payments to be winds fault everything else is “base load” and can’t be ramped up or down but only wind turbines can. If you look at grid watch you will see on the daily graph they show 10 minutes “average” because the grid demand needs to be more precise than 10 minutes. It is also not my fault a few posts back.
Oh, dear. You claim my narrative is inconsistent and fails to make sense, but then (and not for the first time) you immediately regale me with a paragraph of incoherent rambling nonsense. What sense I can make of it follows.
The 'hissy-fit', as you so vividly put it, was merely a reaction to your vacuity in being unable to comprehend simple concepts. How, for example, does one ramp up output from a wind farm fast when there is little to no wind? Why would one want to add a further complication to grid stability by ramping up and down an already volatile source? What effect would the ramping up and down of a few MW have on a grid generating supply in GW ranges?
These are issues I've previously commented on and which, once again, you've studiously ignored - along, of course, with the Government's admission of adding a surcharge to electricity bills and thus increasing costs to the consumer. Needless to say, I find little wrong with my explanation and certainly no inconsistency, but since you're having such difficulty in grasping the full picture, I shall try again one final time.
1). In simplistic terms, power generation can be split into three basic categories: baseload, dispatchable and short term peakers.
Baseload is the proportion of grid supply that is always on and thus requiring generators to having the ability to run at full output 24/7. This, as previously mentioned, is something ideally suited to nuclear.
Dispatchable generators are those which can be regulated or added/taken offline in relatively short order to balance supply and demand; i.e. to counter the myriad Fred and Ginger's randomly turning their appliances/lighting on and off.
Short Term Peakers are fast-acting generators spinning on standby, which can be added at short notice to bolster dispatchable output and to account for unexpected transients in demand.
2). Though around for many years previously, the 2008 Climate Change Act saw renewable energy (primarily wind power) become a significant factor in contributing to the UK's now legal requirement of reducing its CO2 emissions output. While baseload remains the foundation of grid supply, there is now a legal requirement for suppliers to take whatever renewable energy is available. Thus, from a financial standpoint alone (the guaranteed market which has been afforded to renewables suppliers) the concept of ramping wind generators to regulate supply is complete nonsense.
3). To accommodate the introduction of renewable generation, baseload generation has been reduced and dispatchable generation increased to counter its volatility; the latter aspect being clearly discernible from the GridWatch graphs. For example, from an installed capacity of circa 21 GW, last year saw wind power generate a daily average of 5.425 GW, with a maximum of 13.564 GW and a minimum of only 0.143 GW.
As previously discussed, the relatively small output of individual wind generators would have no discernible effect on grid level supply and switching whole wind farms would be heavily dependent upon it's working capacity and the prevailing wind speed at its location. In short, along with a financial penalty to suppliers, there is neither any logic in ramping wind generators from a grid perspective when, due to wind’s inherent intermittency, there is no guarantee of what one is likely to get.
4). Caveats to wind generation are, of course, wind speed and grid overcapacity. The operating window of wind generators is generally wind speeds of between 3.5 - 25m/s, with the maximum output being reached at circa 14m/s. Wind speeds above 25m/s are considered dangerous and generators are shut down to prevent damage.
Generators are also shut down in the event of an overcapacity issue. In this instance, however, operators are compensated for their loss of earnings through the constraints payments mechanism. However, what has become clear since 2010, when constraint payments started, is that the amount charged by wind farms is very significantly in excess of the value of the subsidies foregone. For example, the average price paid to Scottish wind farms to reduce output in 2011 was £220 per MWh, whereas the lost subsidy was approximately £55 per MWh. Ultimately the cost of balancing electricity is paid by the electricity consumer so this significant difference in cost is not in the consumer interest.
As I said. No inconsistency, just your inability to join the dots.
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£115 million of which going to Scottish wind farms due to a lack of transmission capacity to England where the demand was.
And
More smoke and mirrors. Oh, I'm sure that financing a multimillion-pound business venture is a complicated affair, but if there were a need to understand asset accounting and depreciation I'd ask the wife. There isn't.
I get it; knowledge can interfere with an insane rant ;)
Well, you've certainly defeated me here. Care to explain (assuming you can, of course) how you managed to obtain "insane" and "rant" out of two innocuous sentences?
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Nothing you've mentioned above counters the fundamental principle of investing to make money. If the product being sold does not provide enough to recover the initial investment, let alone provide enough to make a profit, then the proposition is simply not viable, and all you've mentioned above becomes moot.
It is viable, if you do the math CORRECTLY. Now ioif ypou use Bozo math then it does not work. Further more if it was not viable you would not have all those companies investing in wind farms and you would not have savvy investors.
Hmm… You appear to have gotten yourself into such a tizz you’ve failed to appreciate what it is you’re actually saying.
Once again, expanding upon the quote you’ve used:
"Nothing you've mentioned above counters the fundamental principle of investing to make money. If the product being sold does not provide enough to recover the initial investment, let alone provide enough to make a profit, then the proposition is simply not viable, and all you've mentioned above becomes moot.
"An annual income of circa £39 million on a project investment of £800 million (with a liberal life-expectancy of 20 years) is the very definition of not viable, whereas an annual income of circa £147 million makes it so. Thus…
"To make wind projects viable, the Government have agreed to strike prices significantly above that of wholesale cost and introduced a surcharge on energy bills to recoup the difference. Not only has this increased bills directly but also indirectly through increased retail prices as suppliers raise them to recover the additional cost. Further costs are also incurred through increasing grid complexity and the need to pay generators to remain on standby to cover for the intermittency of the renewables. In short, renewables increase cost, not decrease them."
I think it clear (well, to everyone apart from you it would seem) that your "savvy investors" only got into the game because of the lavish subsidies previously being provided. Warren Buffet certainly said so:
"For example, on wind energy, we get a tax credit if we build a lot of wind farms. That's the only reason to build them. They don't make sense without the tax credit."
Such lavish subsidies, however, were unsustainable and today, with their demise, we see investment shrinking, companies going to the wall or laying off workers and others gambling their futures on what is, effectively, a high stakes poker game…
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Oh, for goodness sake! From my last post...
I did not ask you to repeat yourself nor to try and explain the opinion of the bozos that you referenced previously. I asked you a simple question what is the column of that column [sic] and what does it mean.
Why when the strike price is ridiculous you get that it is a negotiated fixed price where the utility is obliged to buy it at that elevated price no matter market price but you can't grasp that when it is lower then market price the farm is obliged to accept that negotiated price? If you (or other bozos ) think those prices are unrealistic is irrelevant. Obviously the people building those farms don’t which is why they bid those prices.
Let's start with this:
"I did not ask you to repeat yourself nor to try and explain the opinion of the bozos that you referenced previously. I asked you a simple question what is the column of that column [sic] and what does it mean."
Given your propensity for repeatedly ignoring inconvenient data and evidence. Your taking quotes out of context to manipulate arguments towards your preferred nonsensical narratives. Your offering nothing other than ridiculous homespun theories to support those nonsensical narratives. Your hypocrisy in your believing all should respect your supposed mathematical and financial expertise while arrogantly claiming everyone else (regardless of credentials and expertise - including those in disciplines you know nothing of) is a bozo. And your increasingly tiresome obfuscation and dissembling over wind power. I thought it best to lay some ground rules. Clearly, I was correct to do so.
Now, this:
"Why when the strike price is ridiculous you get that it is a negotiated fixed price where the utility is obliged to buy it at that elevated price no matter market price but you can't grasp that when it is lower then market price the farm is obliged to accept that negotiated price? If you (or other bozos ) think those prices are unrealistic is irrelevant. Obviously the people building those farms don’t which is why they bid those prices."
Casually shooting your mouth off without due thought and understanding, you once again eloquently demonstrate that the only bozo in the room is you.
I ask myself, does he play poker? And if so, is he appreciative of the fact that here he's playing with a stacked deck? Have you not given one jot of consideration as to why wind operators would bid strike prices LOWER than that of wholesale market price? Does it not strike you as odd that supposedly unrelated wind operators have managed to bid the same price?
At the outset, you declared "I did not ask you to repeat yourself nor to try and explain the opinion of the bozos that you referenced previously". But as with there being none so blind as those who do not wish to see, there are also none so stupid as those who do not want to learn.
As you well know, I've already answered the question you ask. That the reality of that answer doesn't accord with your fantasy world is hardly my fault, nor that of the "credible people" you are so swift to denigrate. Simply dismissing the analysis of Professor Gordon Hughes and what the likes of Eddie O’Connor, chairman of global wind and solar developer Mainstream Renewable Power (MRP), has to say about the present parlous state of the wind industry, merely illustrates your scant regard for fact and reality. As previously pointed out, those latest price bids are (certainly on the face of it) simply not credible, and I find it amazing that anyone (least of all a supposed financial expert) would dismiss critical analysis as being irrelevant. And yet, you have. Good Lord! Is that your answer to due diligence? The scheme may look flaky, but other companies are investing in it, so it must be okay? Sorry, but once again you have ignored logic and reason and have failed to join the dots.
Previously you mentioned savvy investors, and indeed they are, but not for the reasons you think. If, as you want to believe, the schemes are viable at wholesale market price, why bid lower? Indeed, why bid at all? Why not just accept market price and build? The reasons are quite simple.
They are appreciative of the Government's legal commitments under the Climate Change Act.
They are appreciative of the impending closure of the last remaining coal-fired power stations (reducing grid capacity and thus resilience).
They are appreciative of the age of some of the remaining gas-fired power stations.
They are appreciative of the fact that replacement gas-fired power stations will necessarily have to include unproven large scale CCS.
They are appreciative of the fact that though work continues on the new Hinckley C nuclear power station, the plans for three other new nuclear power stations have been shelved through the lack of investment.
They are appreciative of the fact that if they can weather this transition period, they will be in a strong position to either renegotiate the contracts or, should the Government be forced to increase carbon taxes, rip them up and go market price.
Sorry dear, but there's no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for you, nor magical pixie-dust accounting. There's just pragmatic thinking and long term planning. It's a gamble for sure, but they have little to lose. Thus, as I previously said:
"The future for British consumers looks bleak. Wind and solar renewables are not cheap, add cost and unless rethought will lead to increasing levels of fuel poverty and hardship. Trying to deny the plainly obvious, something no amount of accounting wizardry can alter, only continues to make you look pig-headed and stupid."
