IPPR Credibility Gone With the Wind
Earlier this month Guido showed how he who pays the IPPR calls the tune, and now it seems the Labour wonk-shop have been at it once again. Today they have published a report making the case for wind power. Apparently wind is an effective way of reducing carbon emissions and can provide a secure and reliable source of energy for the future. Who would argue such a thing?
Dig a little deeper and you will see that two of the three authors of the report are senior employees of GL Garrad Hassan:
It turns out that GL Garrad Hassan is an energy company that specialises in both onshore and offshore wind projects. As they boast on their website:
“GL Garrad Hassan is recognised worldwide as a provider of services at all stages of onshore and offshore wind projects. It has developed industry standard software products for onshore and offshore wind turbine and wind farm design.”
So we have the IPPR letting a wind energy company write a report on wind power, only for them to inexplicably find that wind is the way forward. Fancy that…
Putting the PR into IPPR.
It’ll all blow over.
Someone mention blow?
I’ll take a bushel.
Is that you Garry?
Labour and Tories…you can’t put a windmill between them
Good point!
Wind power is a scam as any fuel kno.
Nice one!
Have they been taking lessons from Tim Yeo?
Tim, like Dave, is a long standing friend of my industry and as such deserves a seat on the board of every green energy company in the country.
Failing that, get the family in on the scam on the quiet. There’s taxpayers money out there just waiting to be plucked from their pockets you know and Tim and Dave, are gallantly leading the way forward.
Always follow the money when asking why is this bastard lying to me.
I’m all wind…
I’m an ill wind
…and I’m the piss that comes before.
Subsidies for wind totems is literally taxing the air we breathe.
Amazing considering wind totems make less power than is used to manufacture and place them (easily seen by looking at the costs). Wind totems are excellent news if you’re a politically connected rent-seeker and want 1000 quid a day of taxpayers earned money.
well, I am a global climate catastrophe skeptic but I like offshore wind power and think it could make a significant contribution to UK energy/electricity and security needs. that said, IPPR can fuck off
IIPC a “Labour Wonk Shop”?
Can’t be! The BBC never mentioned it?
The BBC always clearly point out the political leanings of (‘right wing’) thinktanks.
You must be mistken Guido.
IIPC? IPPR obviously. The medication hasn’t kicked in yet.
IPCC is indistinguishable from IPPR.
Why not install one on parliament buildings, there lots of vacuous wind generated there
One? What fucking use is one? You would need a hundred just to power the Speaker’s reading lamp.
Or a solar panel under his arse, given so many Labourites think the sun shines out of it.
or behind this gentleman:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_P%C3%A9tomane
IPPR – Institute for Public Policy Research
http://www.ippr.org/
Seeks to promote social justice, democratic participation, and economic and environmental sustainability in government policy.
Ha, Ha, Ha. Ha. Har!.
Has the IPPR got shares in ‘Soylent Green’?
That would be the ‘democratic’ participation bit.
Boyson has rhode into the sunset.
He did try to turn things around. And in his last days, he must have been encouraged to see Michael Gove at last beginning to do a bit of good despite the enemies in his department.
He didn’t sign the front page of my Private Eye when I proffered it to him when he visited my school. Huffed and guffawed his way past me.
What to you expect from a load of socialist farts!
Methane.
Useless, foul wind.
We could power the whole of the UK on that for ever and ever ♬ la la la la la ♬
Not related to the Lucas-Batteries are you?.
Preferred him(and that’s saying a LOT)in the “Girl from U.N.C.L.E”…although thankfully it only ran for one season despite starring Stephanie Powers(every teenage boys fantasy spy in the 60′s !!)
One of the best popular songs ever written. Easily as good as Yesterday.
And miles better than that nonsense ‘imagine ‘
Sky news reporting on a story of 2,600 foreign students to be deported in 60 days time. They see fit to have a Labour MP on a foreign student and a education bod who stated “They isn’t a problem with foreign students not leaving the UK and that the ones who didn’t and went on the run where very few in number.”
Unfuckingbelievable!
Keith Vaz prominent on airwaves telling us that UKBA is acting irresponsibly and in a highhanded manner over this…..Quite right, Keith !!! After all the university was only issued a warning 6 months ago that this might happen in view of their poor record keeping etc…but what academic works in the “Long Vac” for goodness sake !!
Does anyone else get that sickly feeling in the gullet whenever there is any mention of silk-cushions-on-expenses-for-me-Vaz?
I’ll put money down Dave will U-Turn on it.
If I was Green I’d be itching to have some Labour sleazebag arrested. Vaz looks good to me, being overly greasy in a public place for starters.
What we want for the UK is an energy mix when it comes to generating power.
So that when the wind turbines don’t work we switch on the coal fired stations.
Or when the wind doesn’t blow we can switch on the coal fired stations.
Or when it snows we can switch on the coal fired stations.
Or if demand is high we can switch on the coal fired stations.
You see without this mix if we relied on wind turbines we would be pretty fucked.
Is it correct that the UK has enough coal to last it 400-500 years at current electricity consumption rates?
Sounds like something arthur scargill might have said.
Most of that coal is probably pretty much impossible (*) to dig up.
(*)OK perhaps just not at all profitable.
Sounds about right but to be honest I don’t know how many relatives Ashley Coal has got.
Yes it is true.
http://tinyurl.com/cmn9esd
Paul Younger, Professor of Energy and Environment at Newcastle University, said there was enough untapped coal reserves in the UK to last 400 years.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7046981.stm
Very probably. The world almost certainly has enough fossil fuel to last around ten million years at current rates of consumption. All the oxygen in iron ore came originally from CO2 in the earth’s early atmosphere which was split into carbon and oxygen by stromatolite photosynthetic bacteria over a couple of billion years. The oxygen combined with the iron in the earth’s crust, leaving the carbon eventually to become fossil fuels: coal, oil and gas. We’ve hardly started to exploit fossil fuels yet.
http://www.clepair.net/statlineanalyse201208.html
Adding it all up, one must conclude that under the present conditions in the Netherlands a 100 MW (Megawatt) ‘name plate’ capacity wind development produces on average 23 MW because of the capacity factor. 4,6 MW (20%) of this has to be subtracted from the final net result because of initial energy investments. From the actual Statline production figures we know that 27% of this 23 MW = 6,17 MW represents the actual fossil fuel and CO2 savings. But from this figure we need to subtract the amount of energy invested in the construction works: 4,6 MW. The net total of fuel saving electricity provided by our windturbines therefore is 6,17 – 4,6 = 1,57 MW on average over the year. That is ~ 1,6% of the installed capacity. It makes wind developments a Mega money pit with virtually no merit in terms of the intended goal of CO2 emission reduction or fossil fuel saving.
Never seen a fossil in my coal bunker yet.
there is a flaw there: MW is not a unit of “energy”.
No,a Watt is not energy,but is a unit of power.
Indeed, name plate capacity is just that and a crowbar in to any Eco-loons argument on wind power. They always use name plate capacity as actual delivered capacity when any 3 year old knows the wind doesn’t blow all the time at a constant rate.
It is all very amateur-ist, no mention ever made of dust to dust, manufacture and infrastructure involved in putting up these 300 ft steel colossus, quite a lot of hydrocarbons burnt in the process.
Having to have power stations on standby 24/7/365 to take up the slack when the wind doesn’t blow is simply crazy. These things and their Labour do not come free.
What’s not being reported is that Germany has realised that wind power is a threat to their economy, is going back to coal and building 23 coal powered stations.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/28/germanys-new-renewable-energy-policy/
Personally I’m a Baked Beans fan for the finest wind in town. Sounds all very dodgy these guys would say wind power is the future, because that is how they earn their money. If they argued against it they would be out of their jobs. They are certainly NOT independent, viewpoint deliverers.
Their GUESSTIMATES are based on “Design Capacity”. This is the theoretical maximum output of the actual electrical part of the generator.
The problems with this are several, starting with what is known as the “Betz Limiter”. That is the practical limit of efficiency of ANY Turbine (the windy bit) which is just over 59%!
Next consider whether the wind turbine can reach the rotational speeds, which will produce the “Design Output”!……… Well NO! Before then, the wind would destroy the turbine……….. a matter of the ratio between wind speed and the rotational velocity of the rotor tips……… (the NOISY bit)……..
Add to that the need for a wind speed of about 20mph to produce minimal viable output and the whole thing becomes a bit of a pipe dream!………. After all, such windspeeds, in the UK, occur for only about 20% of the year and less than 5% of the year at heights of 30ft and below………
So! What is the average efficiency of a wind turbine today?…….. about 46%…….
46% of 20% equals 9.2%!……… and that’s yer lot! So where do they get the 17-22% availability of power?………STATISTICS ABUSE sir!…….. STATISTICS ABUSE!
Not forgetting the unreliability of the generator itself. All of the wind farms in these parts have at least 30% of the windmills shut down at any one time due to mechanical failure and they are bloody expensive to fix as well. It’s not easy changing a gear box on the top of a 300 foot high pole
It’s even more difficult if said pole is sticking up in the middle of the North Sea. I suppose they could ferry the people and equipment out there with helicopters. Helicopters run on wind … er, dont they?
You are farting against thunder until they all get lined up against a wall.
Why is it surprising that people who write industry reports and analysis are employed in the same industries? Seems sensible to for experts to be working in their own field as well as writing in them.
Hopefully Guido will have more success opposing windmills than did the Knight of the Woeful Countenance:
“And the world will be better for this…”
So? They let the Tobacco Control industry write reports on tobacco policy. Just more of the usual.
Same old leftwing jerk circle.
Leftwing Circle-Jerk
I don’t want to get all boring and factual – but what’s worse, is that all the research demonstrating wind is shite is already out there
http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/Publications2/Generate-your-own-energy/Location-location-location-domestic-small-scale-wind-field-trial-report
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/04/16/wind_power_rip/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/04/07/wind_power_actually_25_per_cent/
but the dailymash nails it, as ever
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/environment/energy-costs-will-only-rise-by-110-as-long-as-its-really-really-windy-201112154679
What amazes me is that anyone pays to commission these “reports”. Nobody ever fucking reads them, and as news items, they’re tomorrow’s litter tray liner.
The only occasions upon which these documents are ever subsequently referenced are when online leftwingers try to back up their vacuous arguments with the old evergreen “..academic studies show…” bullshit.
“Fitch-Roy”? Shurely shome mishtake. Does he come from a long line of illiterates?
Considering the recent sha itty weather, I wonder has anyone looked into mapping wind patterns over the locations covered in these monstrosities, once upon a time it issed it down across the Pennines came over the top and went out to the East, wind and pressure seems to be much more erratic, so unless it’s “that climate change guvn’r” perhaps these icons of idiocy are causing weather problems, oh how ironic that would be.
Well, you can’t take energy out of the wind without, erm, taking energy out of the wind. And the wind delivers the weather, so….
Eureka, now if only you can enlighten the LibDims and other “windy supporting millers” that no wind = no energy.
The IPPR report also ignores the political framework in which wind farms operate. Shockingly (sorry!) the support mechanisms for emissions trading and renewable energy interact such that all of Europe’s wind farms have failed to halt the emission of a single gram of carbon dioxide. This is not disputed by green organizations – see Spiegel article: “Wind Turbines in Europe Do Nothing for Emissions-Reduction Goals” (linked below). This conclusion appears to be acknowledged in the recent WWF submission to the Scottish government inquiry into renewables: “Although the accounting rules of the EU ETS trading scheme mean savings in Scotland’s power sector are translated into emission allowances elsewhere in Europe”. This WWF report utilized “original analysis from consultants Garrad Hassan” !! (See page 1 linked below).
http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/climate-change-paradox-wind-turbines-in-europe-do-nothing-for-emissions-reduction-goals-a-606763.html
http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/S4_EconomyEnergyandTourismCommittee/Inquiries/WWF_Scotland.pdf
Ha!
Englandur ve has yu now.
Ve arre building dreiundzwanzig coal fired power stations.
Ha!
How vil zu build der Shpitfires wiz the crappy vindmill power zis time eh?