The Promises of ‘Cheap’ Wind Power Have Utterly Failed
German offshore wind farm developers turned their noses up this week at the Government’s auction for new contracts to supply the country’s power. Much like Britain’s Contracts for Difference (CfD) subsidy scheme, Germany’s older green energy commissioning process asks developers to offer competitive bids for the power they will supply for the next 20 years. “German offshore wind market is currently not interesting for investors,” explained Managing Director of German offshore wind industry association BWO to Bloomberg. “The current auction design forces developers to bear risks beyond their control without any protection.”
The expectations of the green energy sector for the public to pick up the tab for “protection” from risks, to ensure ‘investor confidence’ and other forms of ‘support’ speak loudly to the collapse of market principles throughout the continent. Cake shops owners don’t ask for ‘support’. Doggie parlour entrepreneurs don’t expect their investments to be ‘protected’. And institutional and retail investors in companies that provide reliable forms of energy have been told that they are bad people whose profits are immoral as they are exposed to increasing political risks that could leave their assets stranded.
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Thanks Ben. The wind power debacle is arguably the key element of an absurd situation: the net zero policy means Britain is legally obliged to pursue an unachievable, disastrous and pointless policy – a policy that, unless abandoned soon, will probably result in the nation’s social and economic destruction. It’s insane.
Can they admit it? No
They will just double down as always, objective truth and facts have no meaning to these people!
If they admit this is wrong, just imagine how they’ll cope with everything else they’ll have to admit was and is wrong!
For their sanity and wealth its probably existential.
Its not just the climate BS, its everything! The more they admit, the more credibility they lose.
They deserve no sympathy – at all.
I believe people have a right to be wrong, but when their error is pointed out to them, they should have the humility to admit it!
I also believe most of them know they are wrong, but the gravy train is just so appealing, all that lovely money, power and prestige – sell outs!
“I’m a professor!”. Dorfman demonstrates why at least half the universities should be closed down.
How is he a professor?
Just a job title.
Net Zero is a truly insane, anti-rational policy. It has been formulated and pursued in the face of all scientific reality and common sense. It has been obvious from the start that very diffuse and intermittent energy sources such as wind and solar power were incapable of supplying the affordable, reliable power which is essential pre-condition for a modern economy. This is a matter of basic physics: it cannot be corrected by any amount of “innovation” or “investment” (i.e. subsidies). The costs have been astronomical. The direct subsidies are huge, the misallocation of resources to economically unviable assets vast; but even this is just the tip of the iceberg of the economic damage wrought by Net Zero, as the elevated energy prices have stifled economic growth, lowered living standards, and destroyed hundreds of thousands of viable businesses – including most of our heavy industry. It is no accident that productivity growth effectively ended shortly after the introduction of the Climate Change Act in 2008, and that GDP per head has stagnated or fallen ever since. The Blob has attempted to cover up this economic stagnation and fall in living standards by borrowing huge sums of money, but this ruinous policy… Read more »
Well done to Mr Pile for getting on TV and getting the message out. The presenter starts off by saying “wind is free” – a moment’s consideration reveals this to be an idiotic comment but sadly I suspect a lot of people think like this.
I think I’ve hit the right response to the ‘free’ concept. New internet/mobile service provider offers free service but could be off for several days, only works during the day but your taxes increase snyway
Very good
Everything has a cost.
Oil, coal and gas are free too. The cost is determined by what is involved to extract them and process and transport them to provide a useful energy supply. If they are left in the ground they cost nothing.
The same is true for wind and solar. The cost of extracting energy from wind and solar light, transforming it and transporting it in a usable form.
All factors considered oil, coal and gas are the least expensive.
I honestly think many people don’t look at it like that
Wind is free, but harvesting energy from it isn’t…
I think you’d find many people would not really have considered it like that
Fascinating clip. Where did they find the Prof, utterly hopeless. No arguments, not on top of his brief. Arguments were snobbish ad hominen attacks. Remarkable!
You mean a typical leftie.
‘The current auction design forces developers to bear risks beyond their control’?
That is surely the only reason they get a return on their investment – for taking risk.
“… beyond their control without protection.” The latter being key. All risks are beyond an investors control, and the level of risk determines the reward expected or whether the investor will invest. However no investor will invest without some indemnity. That’s why the insurance industry exists. Nobody would run an airline, or shipping company without insuring against loss and claims arising from operating. The TV Company making the show “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire” had insurance to limit their liability in the event a contestant won £1m – they would meet part of the win, the rest would come out of insurance. It is also why there are Limited Companies. Nobody sane would invest in a company whose liability were not limited. Risks to a company are beyond investors’ control, but in the event of failure their liability is limited to the amount of their investment, if not they would be liable for all the company’s debts and claims against it. Wind and solar are not viable commercial enterprises because of intermittency. Investors have so far been indemnified by Governments providing subsidies, guaranteeing above market rates, and other measures to ensure a sustainable revenue stream to cover cost of… Read more »
It was an interesting interview but Paul Dorfman was obviously lying through his teeth and he wasn’t easily nailed down. He’d also had the kind of professional filibustering media training that advises him to be deliberately ponderous and waste time, slotting in dozens of unnecessary words as he pretended to browse the vast annals of his mind. Then when cornered, fall back on lame pejoratives like ‘denier’. He bogged you down in boring figures I think when you should be talking in easy to digest terms about the overall scam of net zero. You could have nailed him on EROEI and explained what that is to the Talk audience. You could have explained that coal, oil and gas are cheap abundant pre-stored chunks of high density energy that can be transported to anywhere and used anywhere at any time. And this is the cornerstone of any healthy and prosperous society in modern history. Whereas wind is low density real time energy that only appears when the wind blows and the only reason the wind industry exists is because of all the money tax payers have given it – without their permission – to pretend to be the ‘cornerstone’ of UK… Read more »
Great comment bar the darkness thing. Surely over the year all countries roughly the same. Just ours comes at wrong time of year and what sun we get is less favourable angle?
Thanks. No, it’s right, we are statistically the 5th darkest country on Earth.
I had to look it up, you are correct – although I’m not sure how the list was calculated as some of the places darker than the UK in the list are actually not countries at all…the Faroe Islands seem to be number one ….
I suspect the Prof’s ineptitude was due to him never actually having to debate the economic case. These people live in a bubble of the like minded & are never confronted with the counter argument, when they are they have nothing to say.
There is definitely a need to stick to simple, relatable arguments and not be distracted off message. The link back to bills and percentage of rise to subsidise renewables would be major focus for me, everyone has a bill!
‘I’m a Professor’ Dorfman is on drugs, proved by his stuttering word salad of nonsense. Thanks Ben for your voice of reason. I shudder at the thought that that clown is teaching this drivel to the young generations.
It’s economics – stoopid. (With apologies to Bill Clinton’s campaign manager.) No business is viable which cannot plan and/or adjust output to match supply with demand, considering that when and how much output is produced cannot be known in advance, or controlled. This means nobody can know the revenue stream, or cash-flow or draw up a budget. Nobody sane would invest in it. That is why it has been necessary to bilk taxpayers and consumers in order to supply the cash to guarantee a sufficient revenue stream to cover costs and yield a return on investment. Now that cash support has dried up, investors know these businesses are no longer viable. Physics. Grids must run on a frequency of 50Hz with a tight variation of within +/- 1Hz. Everything powering the grid must be synchronised to this frequency. Spinning generators (coal, gas, nuclear) rotate at 3 000rpm and set the frequency at 50Hz, and by their nature offer resistance – inertia – to frequency change caused by increased/reduced demand, faults on the grid, external factors like lightening striking power lines. Wind/solar and batteries cannot set frequency, their frequency is set by the grid, and if that frequency changes, they have… Read more »
In a way we are lucky the TV pickup is largely a thing of the past, imagine how we’d cope with that thrown in the mix now?
“The current auction design forces developers to bear risks beyond their control without any protection.”. No, they expect us to carry that can, whilst they sit on their unearned fat subsidies and constraint payments.
Never forget that the little dolly Coutinho said with a straight face that increasing the AR6 by 60% would save us money and thereby making economic history. Who knew paying more for something would make it cheaper.
Germany has another problem in that no investors are interested in building new gas plants that the country needs because the economics do not rack up. And the EU is blocking the government building them on state competition grounds.
Support for the wind and solar transition should collapse like a punctured balloon when people regularly check the dashboard for their local grid at sunrise and sunset, or breakfast and dinnertime.
This is Texas, ERCOT https://www.gridstatus.io/live/ercot
Britain https://www.energydashboard.co.uk/live
Aust https://www.nem-watch.info/widgets/RenewEconomy/
This will signal the number of occasions when the meals will have to be served cold if the heat has to come from wind and solar power.
No one would ever build a turbine without 100% subsidy and guaranteed outcomes….This is all part of the latter day grift called “Sustainable Development”, all emanating from the UN/WEF and which our Political Class have fully signed up to. —-An eco socialist scam
I heard the last bit of the radio interview. Ben was great. His opponent was begging to be punched in the face, much like in his school days I imagine.
Without seeking our permission and at astronomical taxpayer funded expense, successive UK Uniparty governments have embarked us on the UN’s Climate Catastrophe supertanker which is now accelerating towards an iceberg, bankruptcy and our national destruction.
So, can the UK’s UNCC supertanker be saved? Is it already too late to steer away? If we did steer away right now, apart from calling the IMF what would be the other, already unavoidable consequences?
For instance: would the complicit: bbc, itv, sky, ch4 and the UK Met office survive? How many Titans of UK Industry, Academia and Society would be required to self immolate? Would the complicit UK monarchy survive? How many thousands/millions would be abruptly pitched out of work?
Would the Pakistani Rape Gangs Inquiry still proceed? And, would there be any Sri Lankan or even Ceauşescu-style consequences?
Asking for a young friend.